No Such Luck, No Such Love (discontinued, free to adopt)
by SpartanXHunterX
Summary: In the aftermath of his 'bad luck', Lincoln finds a startling connection between all the bad things that have happened to him. His sisters. Deciding he's had enough Lincoln makes a plan to see how much his sister really love him and how far they'll go to earn his trust and forgiveness. Cover image done by KToonz on deviant art.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: First things first, yes I know NSL has been done to the death, and subsequently beaten with a stick, but after having a little brainstorm I came up with this idea and I'd like to give it a try, if I make a mistake tell me, don't flame me. I'm willing to fix mistakes I make if I'm aware I've made them.**

**This is actually the second time I've written this chapter, I'd started the first chapter a few days ago and when I re-read it I realized I was going down a different path than I had planned, while it was still good it wasn't what I wanted, just as a warning there is a major Au in regards to the ending of the episode, I do not treat my idea as 'how it should have ended' but as a simple event to drive the plot** **forwards.**

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Lincoln Loud, the sole son and middle child of the Loud family, a boy that many would describe as 'unique' and for a magnitude of reasons. The most common, and obvious, thing being his ashen white hair which adorned a turkey tail on the left side of his head, another being his chipped buck teeth, even being the sole boy in a family with ten girls all of various ages and personalities. There were even the more... Negative aspects some looked at, like the boys affinity towards comic books, videos game and some... Less than manly traits that the boy held.

But, if there was one thing everyone could unanimously agree on, it was that Lincoln Loud had very thick skin and it took a lot to rile the boy out of his happy-go-lucky mood. This fact was proven time and time again during the school year, such as when Ronnie Anne, the schools most feared bully, started picking on the ashen haired child and he only got slightly annoyed before finally confronting her. There was even the time that Lincoln had purposely posted an extremely embarrassing video of himself with the intent of turning himself into a laughing stock, even then Lincoln just shrugged and laughed along with everyone as they continued to tease and mock him. It got boring, fast. There was even the girl guru incident that had nearly destroyed his social standing, yet the boy had found a way to preserve through it all and come out no worse for wear.

Now, however, the middle child of the Loud family found himself nearing his breaking point. His teeth ground together as his eyes scanned left and right across his room, his back leaned against the door and knees pulled close to his chest the Ace Savvy fan looked around his, now barren, room. Gone was the bed, desk, wardrobe, chair and shelfs, in its place was the hollow emptiness that now occupied most of the once full space. To his left, sitting where his desk used to be, were a dozen plastic boxes, all filled to the brim with his clothes, toys, comics, electronics and other such items that had been in his room. What had once been an organised mess was now just organised and packed.

What had caused his room to be emptied? The answer is quite simple, 11 days ago Lincoln had found himself without a single moment to himself having spent the six days prior to then attending his sisters multiple activities, to put frankly, it had left him exhausted and in dire need of rest and recuperation, while avoiding his sisters that morning (in the hopes of not attending their activities) he'd forgotten about Lynn Loud Jr. His youngest older sibling. She, like her sisters, wanted Lincoln to come support her in her latest softball game that very day, he had politely declined stating he needed to rest from being worn out. Sadly she didn't take it very well, so one threat with a baseball bat later and Lincoln found himself stuck in the bleachers watching his sister go through her cossack dance before coming up to swing. Sadly Lynn's team had lost that game after their opponents managed to not only catch up but earn more points than Lynn's team did.

When the game was finished, Lincoln had gone to apologise to Lynn on her loss and maybe impart some confidence back into her for her to try harder next game. He never got the chance to do so as Lynn had declared him 'Bad Luck' as she hadn't lost a single game that season until then and had banned him from all future games and practices. At first he didn't let it get to him but the very next day, when Leni was asking Lincoln to accompany her to a fashion show, Lynn accused him of being bad luck again and in a moment of ingenious/ stupidity, he agreed with Lynn then went about spreading the lie to the rest of his sisters so he could have some time to himself for once. It worked, at first, at the cost of Lori's sand wedge golf club. The next two days Lincoln experienced what relaxing truly was, then he began to feel lonely without anyone to talk to or play with. Soon he'd been banned from eating in the same room as the rest of his family, then forced to stay home during a family outing, then his room was boarded up and he was forced to sleep in the garden for a night. At that point he'd had enough of his lie and even saw how far out of control it had gotten, the next morning he'd admitted that the whole 'Bad Luck' fiasco was a lie so he could just have some time to himself.

And even then they refused to listen to him, even Mr. Grouse, their grumpy next door neighbor sided with his family, they even locked all the Windows and doors to the house as if he was some dangerous stranger. He spent the rest of that day in the garden, tossing one of Lynn's softballs against the fence for hours on end. At some point he'd realised exactly what he had been holding and tossed it into Mr. Grouse's garden, not damaging anything, thankfully. He'd fallen asleep just outside the back door that night with nothing but the PJ's on his back. He'd woken halfway through the night soaking wet and freezing cold as rain poured its way to the ground from the sky above, he'd been fortunate enough that Charles hasn't been inside his dog house and had managed to take cover within for the rest of the night but it did little to dry him off or warm him up.

He'd woken up as wet and cold as when he fell asleep, he set about trying to push through his second day in the garden, even going as far as to try to figure out a plan to prove he wasn't bad luck, that was all for naught, as at midday his parents had let him back into the house, he was skeptical at first but didn't want to lose the chance to get back into the house. When he was back inside and the back door was closed his parents had told him to get some clothes and shower, to his surprise they acted as if they'd never kicked him out of the house in the first place. When he first entered his room for the first time in a few days he found it... Barren and devoid of his furniture. Much like it was right now.

After his shower he'd spent the rest of the day in his room, if you could even call it that, just thinking. His sisters had left him alone too, not one of them had come to see him or check on him or even apologise for how they treated him. Dinner came around quickly that day and he was allowed to sit with the family again, as if nothing had ever happened, they talked, chatted and laughed with each other over their dad's famous Lynnsagna. Lincoln wasn't stupid, far from it, he may have even been the second smartest Loud in the house ( Lisa would always be the smartest), there was tension that night, Lynn jr, Lola, Lori and Luan didn't laugh as much, didn't speak as much, they didn't even look in his direction unless he was in the general direction they were trying to face. He'd excused himself early that evening, before dessert could be handed out saying he wasn't very hungry. No-one stopped him.

Since then he'd been in his room, he had to sleep on the carpet floor in his room covered by his own clothes, suffice to say it was the worst sleep he ever had inside the house. And now, he'd spent the first half of today in his room thinking. The past week and a half kept playing through his head, he kept seeing all the things he did wrong and kept seeing things that he should have done in place of what he did, like call Lynn's bluff with her baseball bat, shutdown Lynn's second bad luck accusation, not spread a lie about being bad luck and definitely not purposely/accidentally break Lori's sand wedge golf club.

Those thoughts had tampered off as quickly as they came when he began to think as to how the whole situation had started. It hasn't started with him spreading the lie, although it was a primary contribution to the whole affair, it had started with Lynn when she threatened him with her baseball bat so he'd go to her game and then when she flunked it, she threw him under the bus instead of acting mature and simply accepting defeat and taking the loss as a reason to practice harder. From there his mind wandered to all the other times he'd been metaphorically thrown under the bus and used as the scape goat. It was surprisingly very easy to come up with examples.

The first time had been when he'd uploaded an embarrassing video of himself to rectify the mistake of uploading an embarrassing video of all his sisters for a video contest, without their consent mind you. Of course later that year Luan had uploaded an embarrassing video of him without his consent and even refused to take it down until a week after April fools day, the hypocrite.

The next time had been when Lincoln got himself the noise cancelling ear buds so he could block out all the noise his sisters had made so he could read his comics and play his games in peace. It resulted in all the girls (sans Lisa and Lily) to team up against him to teach him a lesson about ignoring them. During that day he had made the entire house spotless under the pretense It was what Lola wanted him to do, and ignoring Lisa's deafening explosion, his sisters had taken all the credit towards getting the house spotless, minus a few things to not completely bury Lincoln six feet under, he'd still been in trouble that day too for 'imposing all the work into his sister's'.

That's not to mention the time Lincoln wanted to go shopping for his mother so he could get a brand of cereal he wanted, his sisters had tagged along too and then completely destroyed the store, sure he contributed slightly but his mess was nothing compared to what his sisters had done, yet at the end of the day he and only he had been grounded for the family being banned from the store, his sisters didn't even get a warning about their behaviour.

There were other incidents too like when Lucy clogged the toilet with her princess pony book, the time when all ten sisters wanted him to cover for them on the same day and the last time the Sister fight protocol had been used. Just thinking about it made Lincoln shudder. But all those event had something in common, his sisters had thrown him under the bus instead of dealing with things properly, it wasn't easy to see of course but it was there.

The facts were all there, every time something bad happened Lincoln was thrown under the bus to take the weight so the girls wouldn't have to, the girls were rarely if ever punished for their actions yet he was punished the second he put one toe out of line.

Lincoln's thoughts paused as he felt pain spread through his jaw, he hadn't realized that he'd been clenching his jaw so much that it was actually hurting him. Opening and closing his jaw he worked the tension and pain away, his eyes darted to the plastic boxes that contained his things and a spike of doubt erupted in his mind, were all his possessions there? or had one of his siblings made off with some of his stuff, he knew he had money hidden within his stuff so if they found it, they'd likely pocket it for themselves. Pulling himself up from his sitting position at the door, his legs threatening to give way from lack of use, he moved over to the boxes. Taking the topmost box he moved it to the floor to rifle through it without having to stand, the first box contained much of his Ace-Savvy paraphernalia, from action figures to posters and even his homemade Ace-Savvy costume. However, it did not contain the item that held his hidden cash.

For the next half an hour he rifled through each box to see if something was in fact missing. Nothing was. He even found his hidden stash of cash right were he left it, mixed in with his comic books that where all within their original plastic covers, all placed in a single box, in the correct order. Doing a quick recount he saw he had a little over $20, that seemed right.

Even during this brief distraction, Lincoln hadn't forgotten where his thoughts had taken him and the conclusion he had come to. Every time he hung around one of his sisters and something went wrong he was blamed and accused, each time his sister messed up he got in trouble with his parents for it, not them. So the best way to fix this problem? Refuse to hang around with his sisters, now that sounded silly considering Lincoln had felt lonely when he had been on his own before but that was before they kicked him out the house, left him to sleep in the rain and then accepted him back inside like nothing had happened. So the best way to stop it from happening again? To stay away from his sisters.

Just the thought of them was enough to boil his blood, after having a long hard think about them he realised how poorly they treated him. He wasn't sure what was going to happen if he had to get face to face with one of them anytime soon.

Speak of the devil and she shall appear. The door to his 'room' opened, Lincoln could hear the broken latch scrape against the damaged door frame, damage that had been done over the years as his sisters barged their way into his room, most notably Lori, Luan, Lynn, Lola and Luna. The doors hinges squeaked from the movement, a noise that flew in one ear and out the other given how many times he heard it. Small footsteps followed soon after, it didn't take long for Lincoln to guess it was one of his younger sisters. It wasn't Lucy as that girl could come and go without making a single sound nor was it Lily as she would have been babbling her head off immediately after seeing him. No, it was either one of the twins or Lisa.

"Lincoln?" Lana's young yet slightly gruff voice echoed throughout his room, reminding him how empty it was, he needed to fix that. Giving a hum of acknowledgment he turned his head slightly to the right, giving the impression he was listening, he was of course but he didn't trust his voice to hold neutrality right now.

"Mom wants to know if you want to come to the beach tomorrow, she needs to pack the right amount of food for everyone." Lana's voice was filled with caution, as if being in the very room with Lincoln was the worst thing that could happen to a person yet even Lincoln picked up the hint of hesitation and... Hope?

Lincolns mind wandered to last night's dinner talk, he was sure at one point the topic of going to the beach had come up but he hasn't paid much attention to it as he figured he wouldn't be permitted to join them on a family outing. The idea of going to the beach appealed to him a few days ago when he first heard it but now? Going to the same place his sisters were going to for a whole day? For what? So he could be blamed when someone's sand castle fell down because they didn't do it right.

"Pass." And like that Lincoln set to work at putting all of his things back into the boxes, not giving Lana a sparing glance as he did so.

" Oh, ok. " For a split second Lincoln faltered in his actions making his fingers bump into the rim of one of the plastic boxes, he could hear the disappointment in Lana's voice clear as day but chose to ignore it. For the next minute Lincoln continued to return his possessions back to the boxes, even reorganizing them so he could find stuff easier, It wasn't until he heard Lana walk away and shut his door that he let out a sigh of relief, despite the situation he was still tense around his sisters, his thoughts still reeling around how they treated him.

Ten seconds hadn't even passed before Lincoln's door flew open again, Lana's head popped around the door, Lincoln's back was still facing her so she couldn't make out what facial expression he was making, if any at all. "Mom said there's food in the fridge for you and your dessert from last night, ok?"

For a few seconds Lincoln paused what he was doing, several Ace-Savvey comics held in his hands, silence enveloped the two for a few moments before Lincoln gave an annoyed grunt before returning back to tidying his 'room'. This time Lana didn't stick around for long, after about fifteen seconds she slowly walked her way out of his room, shutting the door behind her without another word.

For another five minutes Lincoln continued to pack up his belongings, leaving out a select few items for use. If their mother was packing for the trip now, then they would be going tomorrow, most likely early in the morning. It was close to the end of the summer holiday after all, so chances were that families would try to squeeze in as much time at the beach as possible before having to return to school soon. And if his family chose to leave early so they could enjoy as much sun a possible, who was he to argue, it would only give him more time to himself.

Within the silent solitude of his room, the cogs in Lincoln's head turned faster then they ever had before.

The man with a plan had come up with a very good plan indeed.

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Hard slapping noises echoed throughout the basement, loud grunts, shallow breathing and the rattling of a chain could be heard following throughout the entire room. The noises emanated from one of the poorly lite corners of the houses under level.

Lynn Marie Loud Jr. The fifth oldest of the Loud girls stood facing the corner, wearing her workout uniform which consisted of her red shorts and a white tank top, red boxing gloves adorned her hands as she stood in a boxers pose. Before her the worn down punching bag hung miserably off one of the wooden support beams above. Sweat trickled down her forehead and back as she huffed and puffed, just yesterday the punching bag had been in her own room and much like today Lynn had decided to focus her sole attention on the sand filled bag as she did the day before. Of course her roommate and essential opposite Lucy had complained about it to both her and their parents resulting in the bag having to be moved out of her room.

"Stupid Fucking Jinx."

She started up once more, throwing jabs, crosses, uppercuts and kicks towards the hanging bag, each time a part of her connected she was rewarded with a hard smacking noise. Several times she would grunt as she put all her effort into her swings and kicks adding to the noise that echoed around the room. If one were to watch they'd quickly assume that Lynn was pretending that the punching bag wore the face of her worst enemy, they wouldn't be wrong but they wouldn't be entirely right either.

As Lynn continued to abuse the helpless sack of sand she couldn't stop seeing the face of her only brother appear on its rugged worn surface. She could see his face smirk at her, taunt her, challenge her, undermine her. It irritated her to no end. No matter how hard she punched, kicked or shoved the bag his face remained, smug as ever. She figured her problems were over after they kicked Lincoln out, figured that without him there he couldn't affect them with his bad luck. How else could you explain her loss at her last softball game, her team had dominated the entire season, gone unmatched and untouchable.

Then Lincoln showed up at her latest game, she thought she and her team were doing well, figured they'd dominated the game and move on to the next one, but no, his bad luck came into play and they lost 3-4 in favour to the opposition. Just remembering that was enough to dampen her mood even further, a scowl etched onto her face and her hits became harder and faster, hoping, praying that somehow the hits she delivered to the punching bag would somehow transfer off to the ashen haired boy that she had the misfortune of calling a brother and her only one at that.

It had come to a great surprise to her when their parents stated they were letting Lincoln back inside the house, many of them had tried to protest against it but their parents had shut them down faster than she could throw a fast ball. They said that Lincoln had suffered enough for lying and that, hopefully, he learned his lesson. They said to give him plenty of space and some time to readjust to being back inside the house. She had no problem with that, she would much prefer to keep herself as far away from him as physically possible, without touching him of course.

Few of her sisters shared her sentiments, some where indifferent and the rest just accepted that it was happening, and she was certain she saw Lana perk up at the mention of Lincoln re-entering the house, hell the first thing she did was take down the wooden boards that blocked off Lincoln's room. She would have to keep an eye on Lana, if she stared to hang around Lincoln then she'd have to avoid her too, she couldn't risk getting a single drop of bad luck on her, she doubted it washed off.

Her hands were feeling numb, her legs shook under her weight, how long had she been down here? Hours? Probably, she'd come down here shortly after finishing her chores, which she'd done right after breakfast. She took slight satisfaction in not seeing Lincoln that morning, hell she hasn't seen him all day. He knew his place, below them.

Deciding to take a break from her rigorous training, she backed up, letting the punching bag swing with its current momentum. She turned and headed for the stairs, as she climbed them she could hear the noise of the house get louder, well they weren't called the Loud House for nothing. When she reached the top she immediately turned towards the kitchen, just now realising how thirsty she was and how warm the basement was too. The standard room temperature air of the house felt like a chill breeze as she walked to her destination, she sidestepped Leni who was walking out of the kitchen holding what looked to be a banana smoothie, Lynn hoped that Leni made a few of those, she wouldn't have any issue with sharing them after all.

Looking around the kitchen, she didn't see any sign of there being extra smoothies, only the dirty blender in the sink and Lori, who was holding onto a glass of the same smoothie whilst simultaneously texting on her phone with a small radiant smile on her face. Lynn shrugged at the inconvenience at not getting a smoothie, it didn't matter, she didn't come up here for a smoothie anyway.

Pulling a glass out of the cupboard, she placed it on the side before running the tap, placing her hand under the water she was disappointed to find it lukewarm and not cold like she wanted. Leaving the water to run, she began to filter through the cupboards for something to snack on, unfortunately it was close to the end of the week so the cupboards were mostly empty save for a few items that only a select few of them liked. Moving to the fridge, she had similar results as with the cupboards, with the exception of a piece of triple chocolate cake, a spare piece from last night no doubt.

"Score!" Pulling the platter out of the fridge she balanced it in one hand while doing a fist pump in the air with the other, it wasn't often that there was a spare slice of cake, not when every girl in the house was a massive chocoholic. There were often fights over who should have the last piece of a chocolate bar or the last spoonful of chocolate spread but now? Lynn had the claim to a whole slice of chocolate cake. Her feeling of victory was short lived as the platter was quickly taken off her hand before she could finish her victory pose. Her head snapped to the side quickly, a glare etched on her face as she looked at the perpetrator.

Lori stated back at her wearing a glare of equal strength, the platter held in her hands and an air to her that meant she meant business.

"Hey! What the big idea? that's mine. " Lynn reached forwards to swipe the cake off the platter but Lori moved it out of her reach by moving it above her own head.

"Yours?" Lori's voice was equal parts inquisitive and expecting, like she wanted an answer but she already knew it and expected you to say that answer. "Last I checked this is Lincoln's, from Last night, remember Lynn? "

Lynn frowned at the mention of her younger brother, something Lori picked up. Why should Lincoln, the bad luck charm of the family be allowed to have, what was considered, the greatest delicacy in the entire house? He shouldn't, that was the only right answer. "Well if he wanted it he shouldn't have left the table now should he? Now give me MY cake back."

Lori's glare switched to that of a disappointed frown, everyone's moods had shifted ever since Lincoln came back inside, some good and some bad. But Lynn's disregards of their brother was literally taking the cake. "No." Her voice filled with finality she brushed past Lynn to place the cake back into the fridge . "And if you even so much as think about touching it again I'll make sure you don't go to your next softball game, understand? "

Lynn frowned further, it wasn't often that Lori threatened her sisters with something big but when she did, oh your ass was grass if you didn't listen. Begrudgingly Lynn stomped past Lori, filled her glass from the still running water before angrily making her way back to the basement to work off her now elevated stress and anger.

Lori watched her go, in parts anger and frustration at Lynn's attitude. While it wasn't unusual for Lynn to be a bit cranky, she was taking it up a level more than she usually did. Lori sighed as she turned and leaned her back against the fridge, the whole bad luck fiasco had run a bad turn recently. Sure, Lori herself wasn't happy with Lincoln at the moment, especially considering he broke her sand wedge golf club, but even she wasn't being as harsh as Lynn was.

Their parents had told them to give Lincoln space so he could settle in again. A small part of her had wanted to argue that he shouldn't of had to settle in again but it was overridden by her anger for the destruction of her sand wedge. The results were mixed; Lynn, Lola, Luan and Luna were apprehensive towards Lincoln's presence; Leni, Lana and Lily were happy that Lincoln came back inside whilst herself, Lisa and Lucy were neutral with their parents decision.

Giving a Sigh while shaking her head she banished her thoughts away, she would just have to see how this all played out.

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**A/N: That's the first chapter done, I have learned something new about myself, I am a huge procrastinator, like a massive one. Throughout the entire time I was writing this I kept switching between apps and websites like that would somehow help me, I am an idiot for thinking that.**

**I would also like to say that I haven't written anything in a long time and have a crappy**** autocorrect on the device I'm using so it's harder for me, so I would like to know if I've done well with this and would appreciate honest reviews, show me my flaws.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: After a successful first chapter I have found motivation to start writing the second chapter shortly after uploading the first and I must say the response I received was highly positive and just made me feel better about my creative writing skills.**

**Something I never explained before was that I'm going to try to keep this Story at a slowish pace, I think its the best way for me to be able to explain everything in the right pace.**

**Also a shout out to both RawToonage Press and Delquea for their very helpful and insightful reviews. And a thank you to everyone else who also reviewed as well.**

**Now onto the story.**

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If there was one thing Lincoln could say about his predicament it would be... Annoying.

Currently the ashen haired child was laid down on the couch in the living room wearing his orange PJ's an issue of Ace-Savvy held in his hands. From his position he could hear the rest of his family move and scatter their way through the house as they rushed to get ready for their trip to the beach, a trip that Lincoln would not be participating in, by choice of course.

Normally, in such a large family it can be very hard to get ready in peace, especially when the whole family was rushing to get ready and they only had one bathroom. For Lincoln, it was far easier. All he had to do this morning was move himself from his (empty) room down to the living room, carrying his comic under his arm. Once he'd laid down on the sofa, he didn't move both out of comfort and want.

"LORI!, WHERE'S THE WATERPROOF STUFF FOR MAKE-UP!?" He flinched slightly at the volume of Lola's voice. That girl could screech louder than a banshee when she wanted to.

"IT'S IN THE BATHROOM, LENI'S USING IT, YOU BETTER BE READY QUICKLY OTHERWISE I'LL DRAG YOU OUT OF THE HOUSE MAKE UP OR NO!." Lori herself was as equally loud but that may have been from wanting to be heard over the rest of the ruckus.

"YO, LUAN, HAVE YOU SEEN THE SUNCREAM!?"

"LISA'S GOT IT."

"IF YOU MUST KNOW I AM ANALYSING THE STRUCTURE OF THE SUNBLOCK TO KNOW IF IT WILL BE EFFECTIVE AT PREVENTING SQUARMOUS CELL CARCINOMAS AND MELANOMA."

"DO WHAT?"

"I'M... NEVERMIND, JUST COME COLLECT IT."

Lincoln was half sure that Lisa may have muttered an intelligence based insult after that, as she normally did, no doubt it got drowned out by the noise that was being made by everyone else. He could hear taps the in bathroom run, the pounding of feet throughout the hallway, the shouting voices added to make the Loud family truly live up to their family name.

He was used to this sort of noise though, so he buried his head in the colourful pages of Ace-Savvy as his home descended into madness. With each turn of the page he found himself forgetting more and more about his surroundings, he ignored when Lori came downstairs talking loudly on her phone. He pretended he didn't see Luan when she walked out of the kitchen with a snack in hand, a frown formed in his face when Lynn entered his peripheral vision holding a beach ball in her hands.

He'd gotten two-thirds of the way through his comic before he felt some weight settle on the couch just in front of him. Glancing up, he saw his mother placing Lily down on the far end of the sofa just next to his feet, his lips threatened to curve up into a small smile, instead they twitched before setting into a thin line.

"Lincoln, sweety, I need you to watch Lily while I help your sisters." His mother spoke in the same sweet voice that she used when she let him back into the house two days ago. Before he could even blink his mother turned and power walked off to the stairs, Lincoln's eyes squinted at his mother's retreating form, Typical. When he wanted something he had to ask and offer something to the person for them to even consider it but When they wanted something from him? They expected his help, so they never asked.

His eyes darted back over to Lily, his mood brightened almost immediately, it didn't help that Lily just looked absolutely adorable right now. Normally the tiny tot strolled around in her diaper, having a serious disliking towards clothes, now though Lily was wearing a white t-shirt with lavender shorts the same colour as her blanket, he could see her diaper stuffed within making her look a bit bigger than she was, her bear feet wiggled cutely in front of her. Her right thumb was stuck in her mouth and a slightly oversized straw hat was sat on her head.

Lincoln couldn't bring himself to hate Lily, she was just far too adorable to hate, that, and she wasn't at fault for what happened to him. Lily was only a one year old, she didn't understand the difference between right and wrong, she was copying everyone and learning from what she saw, imitating and changing into her own person. She had no say in anything official, other than a dirty diaper.

"Wincon." His eyes darted up to Lily, her bright blue eyes stared back at him filled with innocence and wonder. It had come as a surprise to everyone when Lily first said his name at the dinner table over a month ago, the girls had tried to accuse Lincoln of trying to manipulate Lily into his mini-me again. To his surprise it had been Lisa who came to his rescue, she stated that due to Lincoln's name being the most commonly shouted, Lily had repeated exposure to his name so she picked up his name faster than anyone else's. Since then the girls had tried to get Lily to say their names but none had succeeded.

A small smile curved into Lincoln's face, tossing his comic into the table, completely forgetting it in favour of his youngest and cutest sister. She's was also his only sister at the moment. Lincoln sat up, bringing his body closer to Lily, slowly he moved his hands closer to her stomach, as his fingers came within an inch he started wiggling them sporadically then quickly pressed them to her stomach. The effect was almost immediate, Lily began to squirm under his touches, giggling and laughing as Lincoln continued to assault her slightly pudgy tummy.

The exchange between the middle and youngest children did not go unnoticed, from the dining hall door frame Lori stood, arms crossed and a small smile on her face as she saw Lincoln look truly happy for the first time in days, her phone call with Bobby temporarily on hold so she could marvel at the loving display. It wasn't often that Lincoln could play with Lily, the littlest Loud would often just wander around in the pursuit of something interesting. Lori heard Lily's giggles turn to happy squeals when Lincoln lifted her shirt and began to blow raspberries on her stomach, Lily was a very ticklish baby indeed.

When Lincoln's face came up, Lori saw his face wore a satisfied smile and his cheeks were flushed in satisfaction from having made their baby sister happy. Lincoln's eyes darted to her and in an instant his goofy grin disappeared and the blush on his face faded, in its place was the most neutral look she was sure she had ever seen and on Lincoln no less. In less than a moment Lincoln had resumed his original sitting position, ace savvy comic in hand. Lori frowned at that, she knew it would take Lincoln a while to go back to the happy-go-lucky boy he had always been but to switch between two different moods that quickly? And just because he looked at her? That wasn't right.

She's didn't dwell on it for long as Lucy began to descend the stairs in her black and white one-piece swim suit, black and white leggings covered her from the waist down and her black umbrella was hoisted over her right shoulder. The older twin Lana three steps behind in her dark blue overall swim suit, two pairs of buckets and spades, one in each hand and a half -pleased smile on her face.

Lori swore right then and there that if Lana tried to bring home another crab or fish from the beach she was going to literally scream. The last time she had tried the fish had fallen to the carpeted floor of vanzilla, it took weeks of cleaning to get rid of the salty water smell and even now if you put your nose to the vans floor you could still smell it. Her problem with Lincoln forgotten she quickly returned to her phone to resume talking to her Bobby boo-boo bear.

Lincoln watched as she walked away from the corner of his eye, he should've known that someone would have seen that, however, it might just play into his whole plan later. His eyes poked over the top of his comic, eyeing Lily carefully, the little baby was happily babbling away and while Lincoln could normally follow what Lily was trying to say whenever she 'spoke', his thoughts were a little too crowded at the moment.

Within minuets their mother returned downstairs, Lisa and Lola in tow, with Lily's diaper bag over her shoulder she approached the couch and picked up, a now happy, Lily. Chuckling at her youngest daughters happy babbles she turned towards the source of the noise to address those responsible.

"Kids!, We're leaving in three minuets, if you're not in the van you can stay home with your brother today, you too Leni let's go! " just like that the girls ceased what they were doing and made a mad dash for the family van, scrambling to get through the door.

Leni and Luna descended down the stairs, wearing shorts and t-shirts over their swimsuits. Lynn Sr. emerged from the kitchen, a large wicker basket between his scrawny arms, his knees shaking under the weight of it. Rita smiled at the sight of her husband before turning towards her only son, her face adopting a worried look.

"You going to be ok staying home sport? If you've changed your mind we'll wait outside for you." Rita silently hoped her son would reconsider, if he came to the beach then he and his sisters might just be able to put the past issues to rest.

"I'll be fine." Flipping through his comic, Lincoln disregarded his mother's offer.

Her mood dipped slightly but she couldn't say she was surprised by Lincoln's response, digging her free hand into her pocket she pulled out a few items.

"Well, ok, just stay safe ok." Rita placed several bills on the coffee table along with a spare key to the house. " If you decide to go out at all make sure to lock the door, if you get hungry order yourself a pizza or something. Your father an I have yet to do the shopping so their isn't much of anything in. " She quickly looked over to her husband, who had only just managed to get to the door with the wicker basket. "And if you do go out and think you won't be home before us, leave us a note just so we know where you went ok sweetie."

Lincoln only nodded in response, far too engrossed in his comic to answer properly. At least that's what Rita thought.

"Alright, just make sure you stay safe and have fun okay. " Walking over to her husband, Rita used her free arm to grab into one of the baskets handles, supporting its weight easily. Her husband held onto the other handle as the two of them made their way out the door, slamming it shut with their feet.

Lincoln sat there in silence, no longer paying attention to his comic, from his spot on the couch he could just barely see vanzilla out the window. He could hear the doors to the van open and close multiple times, Loud voices ringing out whenever a door was opened. Soon after he could hear the old vans engine roar to life, sputtering and coughing as it tried to remain active.

All the while Lincoln waited, hoping that the relic of a van wouldn't fail them now. He tensed up when he heard the wheels give a squeak before the overly large van started to drive away from the house, his housemates and sister in tow. Even after the van left his sight he waited, he waited till he couldn't hear the van any longer, he waited longer after that, someone was bound to have forgotten something and they'd have to come back for it.

His eyes darted around the room, looking at everything and nothing at all. His eyes scanned over the framed photos of the houses residents but he did not acknowledge them, his eyes darted to the trophy case but he didn't pay attention to it. Lincoln waited on baited breath, expecting vanzilla to return any second.

Seconds turned to minuets, he waited just a little longer, just in case. His eyes darted up to the clock, noting that fifteen minuets had past since vanzilla had left. That was long enough he supposed, they wouldn't turn back for anything now, not with the amount of time they'd have to waste to get it.

Throwing his comic on the coffee table, he sighed as he stood up for the first time in an hour, stretching his legs to regain feeling in them he glanced around the room, making note of a few things before turning for the stairs. As he walked he remembered what his mot- Rita, what Rita had said to him and everyone else. How she expected him to look after Lily, he didn't mind but being asked if he could would have been nice, how she basically threatened everyone else to leave them home with him as if that was some form of punishment. Not to mention the sickeningly sweet voice she spoke to him in, he was beginning to understand why Lucy hated hearing it too.

It just sounded so fake.

As he climbed the stairs he relished in the silence of his home, such silence was near impossible to get, what with twelve other people living in the house at all times. He paused halfway up the steps, looking to his right he saw the frames picture of himself to the left and ascending up the wall was the photos of Lynn, Luan, Luna, Leni and Lori. To the right of the photo and descending down the wall were the photos of Lucy, Lana, Lola, Lisa and Lily. Without a second thought he grabbed hold of his Photo before taking it off the nail and tucked it under his arm before continuing up the stairs.

Turning right at the top of the stairs he made his way to the converted linen closest that he had the displeasure of calling his room. Once inside he shut the door, purely on habit, he placed his Photo on top of the plastic boxes that held his things. He moved over to the pile of his clothes that he had to use as a bed last night, he'd tried to use the clothes as both a mattress and a cover but jeans didn't make the most comfortable thing to lay on.

Reaching under some of his orange polo shirts he pulled out an A4 sized notebook, his best friend Clyde had gotten it for him some time ago, saying it would be good for him to write down his thoughts so they weren't bottled up inside him. He would have listened to his friends advice had he not caught three of his ex-sister's looking at it in his room. Obviously they thought that he was already writing stuff down and wanted a sneak peak, since then he hadn't touched it until yesterday.

Flipping to the first page he looked at all the ideas he had written down, the page was a mess of scribbles and half baked ideas. The next page, however, showed his fully planned out idea, along with a small list of things he needed to do today to make everything far more comfortable for himself. Yesterday he had decided that the best course of action was the simplest one, thing didn't need to be complicated to be effective. Unlike one of his ideas.

'Run away, really brian? That's a good idea to you.' It was stupid and Lincoln knew it, sure he'd be able to get far out of royal woods before everyone came home but what would he do once he got to where he was going? Wherever that was, how would he eat? Where would he sleep? How would he live his life normally? He wouldn't, he'd struggle everyday. Besides how would they even find him to bring him home in the first place? To prove they loved him they would need access to him.

In the moment ideas are never good and almost never pan out properly.

His plan was far simpler, he would do what he wanted, when he wanted, how he wanted. He wasn't going to go anywhere with his ex-sisters unless absolutely unavoidable, he wasn't going to go to their clubs, practices, groups or anything they did. His ex-parents included. He wasn't going to tell them anything, not how he felt, not what he wanted or why he was the way he was. He wanted them to figure it out in their own, if he went and told them he wasn't happy with what happened and he practically disowned them they'd go out of their way to do something for him, right then and there and EXPECT him to forgive them like that.

That was not what he wanted, they needed to earn it after realising what they had done on their own. They would all have to go to the effort to actually try, a group effort meant nothing in his eyes. The only exception was Lily, the baby of the family did not deserve his ire. If things went the way he wanted, although he doubted they'd go perfectly, if they saw him treating Lily nicely then maybe they'd go to the effort to be in her place. Some of them would have to go a little extra than others.

Looking back at his 'to-do' list his shoulders sagged slightly, why did he decide to put the large jobs first?

'Because you wouldn't get round to them otherwise.' His subconscious quickly reminded him. That was true Lincoln would rather sit and do nothing than something most of the time. But he couldn't afford to procrastinate today, not when he had so little time to do everything.

'Just do one thing at a time and it'll be done before you know it.' Standing, he threw his notebook into the pile of boxes before turning around and scooping as many clothes as he could into his arms, then he deposited them into an empty corner to be folded later. Bit by bit he moved his clothes out from where his bed used to be, once the corner was free of clothes he left his room a single destination in mind.

Out in the hallway, Lincoln came to a stop just underneath the hatch to the attic, if he was right then what he was looking for should be up there if not, then in the basement. Reaching up he grasped the pull string and gave it a hard tug, slowly the ceiling above him came down and even slower came the ladder attached to it. Once the ladder hit the floor and Lincoln was sure it wouldn't retract on itself, he began to climb his way upwards.

Light from the hallway filtered through the opening, Lincoln stood still at the top, eyes searching for his quarry. If he remembered right then Pop-Pop had stayed a little over two months ago and with Lucy being the only person to regularly come into the attic then it shouldn't take long to find his charge. And he was right, just a few steps away from the opening and wedged between some boxes was the old inflatable mattress that they kept for Pop-Pop. The ashen haired child grasped the deflated and rolled up mattress, slowly dragged it to the opening in the floor before unceremoniously dropping it below.

It bounced off each step before collapsing at the bottom, unwinding slightly when it stopped. First item down, both figuratively and literally. Turning back to the contents of the attic he began to search through everything, he wasn't looking for anything specific this time, more on the lines of seeing if there was something he could use. For minuets he looked all around the attic, hoping to find something, anything that he could use to make his room more comfortable or easier to be in. Sadly there wasn't much up in the attic that would be viable for use and of the few items that could be used, he couldn't move them out the attic without risking breaking either it or himself.

Giving off a disappointed sigh he made his way down and out the attic. He was hoping to have found either a small desk or bedside table. Something to just put his things on so he could at least organise some of his things but alas it was for naught. He pushed the ladder back up into the attic, concealing his journey up there. Re-rolling the mattress, he grabbed it and begin to drag it towards his room, as least now he wouldn't have to sleep on the floor, the biggest issue would be blowing it up.

Twenty minuets later, countless breaths and nearly fainting twice Lincoln had managed to blow up the inflatable mattress. The mattress was now sat where his bed used to be, it only served to remind him how small his room really was. The single person sized mattress had both the top and bottom sides nearly touching both walls, the edge coming close to the door frame.

Running down to the living rolm, Lincoln opened the wardrobe, it was filled to the brim with cleaning solutions, blankets and pillows. He scooped up as many blankets as he could before running them up stairs to his room, dumping them on the floor before running back downstairs. This time he grabbed several of the spare pillows before stuffing everything else back into the wardrobe, taking his haul up stairs he felt himself relax against the pillows he was holding.

5 minuets later saw the inflatable mattress nearly covered in pillows and enough blankets to keep half the neighbourhood warm.

The hardest part was now over, Lincoln finally had a bed to sleep on, sort of. His eyes darted back to his notebook... It was going to be a long day.

* * *

The sound of crashing water hit her ears, the smell of salty air penetrated her nostrils. She could feel the grit of the sand below her legs as she shifted around. Lana picked up her spade, scooping up more sand to add to the mix already present in her bucket. What the rest of her sisters didn't understand was that building sand castles was a complicated procedure, if too much sand was in the mix the castle would be crumbly, too much water would leave the castle in a sloppy mess. The mixture had to be perfect for her castle, why couldn't any of her sisters see that.

Dumping the sand into the bucket Lana begun to use her hands to mix the sand and water together, making sure to reach all the way to the bottom and mix it around, it wouldn't do her any good if half the castle was crumbling while the other half was dripping down the walls.

Pulling her sand covered hands out of the bucket she left the sand to set for a minuet, looking over the small strip of beach their family had claimed as their own she could see all of her sisters having fun or being occupied. Lori was laid down on a beach towel, phone in hand as she took photos of herself. Lana could faintly remember her saying something about her photos being better than someone else's but she didn't quite understand it, how does a photo make you better?

Leni, Luna, Luan and Lynn were all playing a game with the beach ball Lynn had brought, hitting it back and fourth between each other but never letting it hit the ground, she wasn't sure who was winning or how points worked in this game, her eyes narrowed at Lynn, a lot of anger slowly forming in her stomach as she looked at the brown haired jock.

Averting her eyes she looked over to Lucy, the goth sat off far from everyone else under her black umbrella, she was probably writing more dark and gloomy poetry. Her twin Lola was by their parents being buried up to her neck in the sand, which was off as Lola hated getting sand in her swimsuit, Lana didn't mind the sand one bit, she'll probably put some in her swimsuit later to scratch a few itches she couldn't reach. Lily was with them too, happily drawing in the sand as she pleased. Lisa was by the water doing... something. Lana could never really understand anything the four year old said and she knew how to take an engine apart and put it back together within the hour.

That was twelve of them, her eyes scanning over everyone again, trying to see the mistake she made. There were thirteen of them but right now she couldn't find Linc... Oh, right.

She completely forgot that Lincoln was staying home today, it was a shame really, if he was here then he would definitely help build her sand castle, even decorate it in a non-girly way that would make her happy and the castle look cool. She was missing her older and only brother a lot, her gut clenched together, she felt as though her insides were spinning faster than a cars wheel. She wasn't too sure on what this feeling was, if she had to guess then she would say guilt.

She was guilty because of what happened to Lincoln and she did nothing to stop it, yes she believed him at first, didn't want to lose to her first 200 pound alligator after all. Everything else though, she didn't agree on, banning him from the movie, selling his furniture, boarding up his room and locking him out for two whole nights. She never agreed with any of that, of course she did board up his room but... She was under a lot of pressure to do it from her other sisters, namely Lynn and Lisa, it was even Lisa's idea to board up his room.

She hoped her big bro was alright at home, she hoped he was having fun. Grabbing the bucket she slowly lifted it till it was above her castle, tilting the bucket till the top stared to line up with the base of her castle she quickly slammed it down to prevent the sand from escaping. Tapping the bucket with her spade she waited five seconds before pulling the bucket off, finally the second story to her castle was complete, now she could finally...

Just as fast as that a beach ball slammed into her castle toppling her nearly made top floor before crushing one of the lower walls.

"Sorry dudette, hand the ball back please."

Without thinking she picked up the ball and threw it in Luna's general direction. Looking back at her castle she saw that 1 /3 of it had been destroyed, Lana gave a disgruntled grunt as she kicked the rest of it down, hard work be damned. Picking up her bucket she set off to find the hardest, jagged, ugliest rocks and seashells she could.

Three of the four girls watched in mild concern as Lana stormed off with her bucket, having seen her destroy her sand castle. She seemed a lot moodier today and while she wasn't Lola, she is Lola's twin. That thought alone was enough to send a shiver down there spines. They didn't want to know what the mechanic was capable of when angered.

* * *

After a long four hours, he was almost done, as he dragged his way down the front yard of his house, black bag in tow, he knew he'd be done after this.

Swinging the bag up, he dumped it into the metal trash cans before sighing and stretching his back. He paused for a moment, his left hand gripping something plastic and cup shaped. Without debate Lincoln threw his 'Most improved Brother' trophy in the trash, not looking back as he turned towards the house.

* * *

**A/N: Well that took forever, and I must say the response I receive****d during the first 48 hours of uploading the first chapter was absolutely astonishing.**

**Just before posting this chapter I've got 24 reviews, 49 follows and 35 favorites and most of that came within the first 48 hours and that blows my mind.**

**Again, do tell me if I've made a mistake so I can fix it and improve myself and my writing.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: never before would I have expected to receive such positivity from everyone, I figured I'd write this, you'd read it then we'd all move on.**

**Didn't think the best part of my day would coming in to see the reviews and comments and just... Smile at them. Am I glad I started this and I hope all of you will be enjoying it as much as I am.**

* * *

Vanzilla sputtered and coughed, each shift of the gears resulted in a horrible grinding sound that really should have belonged inside a crushing machine at a junkyard.

The old girl would need a check up, Lana decided, she was overdue one actually. There was always something wrong with the family van, low oil, wobbly axles, loose tires, clogged engine, broken spark plug and more. Even with Lana's mechanical skills it was a miracle the old beast of a van hasn't already broken down, permanently. As much as Lana loved giving the family wagon it's much needed TLC, she knew the van wouldn't last much longer than it already had.

It was a shame really, the van really meant a lot to the family, especially their father Lynn Sr. Lana had even once overheard her father say he planned on passing the family van down to Lincoln when he was older. It was fitting she supposed, their great grandfather had passed it down to their grandfather then it was passed down to their father, or so the story went.

Lisa had said the van wasn't nearly old enough to have been passed down two generations but that was besides the point, one day Lincoln would own the family van all to himself.

Even if that was years away.

She remembered when she told her sisters that during a (non-Lincoln) sibling meeting, the results were oddly mixed. Lori, Lynn and Lola had shown clear displeasure at the idea of Lincoln inheriting the family wagon. Luna, Lisa and Lucy seemed to agree with it, at least Lisa didn't look surprised and everyone else was unsure with the decision.

Lana could, to some degree, understand. If their father was right when it had been passed down two generations then passing down the van was a father-son tradition. Lincoln was his only son, so it made sense.

With her thoughts moving into her older and only brother, guilt crept its way back into her gut. Every time she thought of her brother the guilt soon followed, it had happened several times while they were at the beach. Each time the guilt came she felt sick, her gut churned and twisted, it was like riding on the milkshaker ride at dairyland, except without the joy of swallowing your own puke.

She looked up from her seat in vanzilla, the far back right corner, or what was dubbed 'The wild west'. To her left was Leni, who was dazed out by the car ride. Next to her was Luan who was trying (and failing) to pull a laugh out of Lola, who sat on the far left of the seat.

The row in front of her held Lucy, Lisa and Lynn. The goth girl was right in front of her, The resident genius was to her left, Lisa's monologue on car travel dangers seemed to entertain the black haired girl, probably because of her affinity towards the dark and dreary. Next to Lisa was the wicker basket they had brought, now empty of course, next to it and in the seat named 'the sweet spot' was Lynn, Lana's eyes squinted at the jock, a small hint of anger bubbled over the guilt she felt for Lincoln.

It was Lynn's fault for all that had happened to Lincoln, no matter what anyone else said she was holding the athlete responsible. Her eyes shifted forward a row, Luna sat in front of Lynn and next to Lily, she could hardly hear the baby babble over everyone else's noise. Lori was in the far right, currently using all of her attention to focus on Lily. At least she wouldn't be sick this time. Her parents were in the front two seats, focusing on driving and keeping an eye on the front two rows.

Lana's eyes returned to the back of Lynn's head, trying to glare a hole in the back of her head. The meat-headed jock had been... Meanspirited for the past two weeks, glares, threats and a little more physical interaction of the less than friendly type. Lana's dislike of her was growing bit by bit each day, it wasn't enough for the other sisters to have to call another sister-fight protocol but if Lana didn't keep herself in check, then they would have to.

Lana decided, she was going to check on Lincoln once she got home, he's been home alone all day. Everyone needed someone to talk to... Right?

"Alright kids, we're home." Lana snapped her eyes to her parents, eyes refocusing. Looking out the window she saw the family house, toys all over the roof and yard, a slightly rusted garage door and the many pits Lana herself had dug for her mud pits. The rest of her sisters began to vacate the, slightly hot, family wagon. Luna took Lily while Lynn took the basket. Lana waited till everyone else had gotten out before making her own way, closing the door behind her. Her parents locked up the van and the three silently made their way to the door, Lana dragging behind slightly.

By the time Lana had gotten through the front door everyone else was already milling around doing their own thing and she swore she could hear the shower going already. Probably Lola or Leni. Typical, those girls couldn't handle one bit of sand on them for a second, Lana was sure that a buckets worth of sand would fall off her when she tried to get changed later, and she was enjoying the scratching the sand was providing.

That wasn't important though, Lincoln was, shutting the door behind her she made her way up the stairs, so focused on her destination she didn't notice the wall was one picture short. She didn't see, or hear, Lincoln downstairs so he must be in his room. Glancing towards the bathroom she saw her (younger) twin banging on the door to the bathroom, desperation on her face. She paid it no mind as she walked towards Lincoln's room, yet the closer she got the more nervous she felt.

Why though? Why was she suddenly nervous? Did it somehow connect to the guilt she felt? Was it something else?

Standing outside her brothers room she felt... Funny. Like she was doing something she wasn't supposed to do but at the same time was excited to do. Why!? If was just Lincoln's room. She's been in there dozens of times, sometimes without permission. She wanted to raise her hand and knock, just open the door and talk to her brother, just like all the other times she had. So what was stopping her?

Nothing she decided, raising her hand she knocked her knuckles against the wooden door and waited.

Nothing.

She's knocked again, a little harder but calmly, one part of her told her it was right to be calm right now, she wasn't sure why but she listened.

Getting nothing a second time she placed her hands on the door, steeling herself and banishing the feeling in her gut she opened the door. She could hear the handles latch scrape against the wooden door frame, her eyes quickly glanced over it all, a half busted handle, a broken lock, a split and cracked door frame. It suddenly came as no surprise as to why Lincoln had no privacy, he couldn't lock his door If he even tried. The entire frame and door needed replacing for that. Adding that to her growing 'to-do list' she scanned around Lincoln's, admittedly small, room. Surprisingly it had changed from the last time she saw it.

The inflatable mattress that Pop-Pop used was now where Lincoln's bed used to be, covered in blankets and pillows, the boxes were stacked in the left corner, higher up than usual to allow more floor space. A small ottoman table was next to the wall underneath the window and several of Lincoln's toys and magazines were neatly laid out on top of it, compared to what it did look like, the room looked... Lived in.

Her eyes turned to Lincoln himself, who was sat on his bed, clad in nothing but his red victory undies reading one of his comics. Perhaps he was too engrossed in his comic to hear her.

"Lincoln?" She called out towards him gently, her nervousness coming back in full force.

No response.

She took one large breath before stepping into his room, why did that feel wrong? She's stepped in here many times before, sometimes after having a nightmare she'd go to Lincoln for comfort and he'd always oblige to share his bed for the night.

"Lincoln." Her only response was when Lincoln turned the page of his comic having not seen Lana as he did so.

She stepped up to the bed, feet grazing the mattress from being so close to it. She wasn't getting much success from talking so she placed her foot on the bed. As soon as she began to apply pressure so she could stand atop the mattress the comic shot down, her brothers face coming into view, she froze like a deer in headlights.

Their eyes connected, her deep blue eyes meet Lincoln's light brown ones, out of all of her siblings, Lincoln truly was unique. Unlike everyone else who has either blue or green eyes, Lincoln was the only person to have brown ones, his white hair only made him stand out more.

She realised, with a pang of nervousness that Lincoln was waiting for her to talk. Lowering her foot she tried to say something, anything. The look on his face left her speechless, his face was blank, emotionless and stoic. He could probably give Lucy a run for her money. And it scared her to think that he was giving that look to her.

Her heart clenched and twisted, Her gut did somersaults and her knees shook. She couldn't place why she seemed to freeze up, how her throat went dry and her mind go blank.

"Are you ok Lincoln?" The words flew out of her mouth faster than she could stop them, almost being an unintelligible mumble.

She saw his eyes shift to... Something, an emotion she wasn't quite sure of, annoyance? Curiosity? She's didn't know.

Finally he answered her.

"Why?"

With that one word Lana felt her gut do a flip, that wasn't the response she expected. Normally Lincoln would just say how he felt or shrug weakly if something was wrong but never had he asked why with such a... Neutral tone. The times he did ask, he always had a hint of fear and caution in his voice as he knew why they would ask if he was ok but not this time.

"I just though that," her fingers intertwined as she felt a bout of nervousness overcome her. This wasn't right, this wasn't her. She was Lana loud, mechanic, plumber , animal lover, she took care of nearly two dozen pets a quarter of which were venomous. She's never felt nervous around them, so why did she feel nervous around her brother? "I though that you'd be lonely." Despite trying not to, her voice came out small and weak, so quiet she was sure Lincoln would not have heard her.

Lincoln flipped up his comic book, intent to continue his reading. "Well, I'm not. I had a great time alone today and would like to continue reading." He shuffled in his spot, intent to get more comfortable upon his bed. "Please shut the door on your way out."

Her heart clenched, her gut rolled and she could feel tears begin to form in her eyes. Without another word she moved away, her hand grasped the faulty door handle and pulled it.

Before the door fully closed, Lana have one quick last peak at her brother. She was certain, with all her heart, that Lincoln hated her.

* * *

Sunday's, the day that is the most relaxing yet most dreadful. It marked the last few hours that you could have fun before the burdens of Monday came around. As it was, today was the last day of summer break, tomorrow every kid in Royal Woods would return to the soul sucking enclosure that was... Education.

Most were utilizing their last day of freedoms to sleep through the early day, intent on waking around noon. Sadly for Lori, the eldest of the Loud children, this was not the case. She, along with the rest of her sisters, had to get up earlier than expected this morning.

Turns out Lynn Jr.'s last game before school started was today, early too. So the family scrambled around for the second time in two days to get ready, though not as badly as yesterday. They quickly downed whatever snacks and crumbs remained in the cupboards before bolting for the car, Lynn was not the most patient Loud.

Currently Lori sat upon the bleachers, her sisters and parents surrounding her and at this moment they truly lived up to their family name. She watched the game with interest, sports wasn't her thing, except golf but she was here to support Lynn for her final game. With a smile on her face and the occasional cheer of her sisters name she contributed to the noise.

Even though Lynn's team was losing, it seemed this game was running in opposite to Lynn's previous game so far. The game had started off normally, swings, throws, outs and those few who managed to score points. Then, the opposing team pulled ahead, their lead on Lynn's team was too great to catch up and it was the final batting. Two of Lynn's teammates were scattered on two of the bases, ready to run back to the home plate at a moment's notice. And Lynn was up to bat.

Lori halted her cheering to quickly check on her sisters. Lincoln wasn't present as Lynn had banned him from coming, the ashen haired boy simply shrugged before pulling out one of his game consoles, stripping to his underwear then relaxing on the couch. Lori would probably never understand that odd habit of Lincoln's, it's not like she or anyone else stripped down to their underwear for their activities and she hoped no-one else would.

Her eyes stopped on Lana, the older twin was clearly in an odd mood today, she'd been silent all morning with a look on her face as if someone had killed her favorite pet frog hops. Now, though, she looked annoyed and disinterested in Lynn's game. Lori wasn't sure if she had cheered once during to whole game.

There was something going on there that Lori would have to investigate into, normally she'd leave Lincoln to deal with the younger five girls as he always got through to them, mostly. However, she doubted he was in a mood to talk, if his behaviour yesterday was any indication.

Deep within her mind she knew a storm was brewing, for the past week Lana had actively tried to stay as far away from Lynn as she could. Lincoln seemed intent on staying silent and Lynn was still pushing the bad luck routine even though their parents made them stop. She had to defuse the situation before it started and to do that she'll have to start with Lana, the young mechanic would be the easiest then she'll have to deal with Lynn. There was no way Lincoln would talk to her if someone was still trying to claim he was bad luck.

Setting that thought aside, she refocused on the game. Lynn was up to bat, having done her 'good luck dance', Lori couldn't remember what she called it.

Tensions rose throughout the bleachers.

Silence fell upon the normally loud family.

The pitcher pulled their arm back, wrist twisting, ready to throw.

He threw the ball.

Lynn swung.

"Strike one!"

Lori flinched slightly at the Loud voice, it wasn't often Lynn missed but it would be wrong to say Lynn had never missed.

Lynn readjusted her bat.

The umpire threw the ball back to the pitcher.

He reared his arm back to throw again .

He threw it.

Lynn swung.

"Strike two!"

The loud family waited on baited breath, this was it, the final throw, all or nothing, win or lose.

The ball was thrown back to the pitcher.

She's readjusted her bat, eyes squinting.

He rolled his arm back.

He threw a fast ball, big mistake.

The sound of a loud _**CRACK **_erupted from Lynn, her bat extended outwards as the ball flew away.

"AND IT'S A HOME RUN PEOPLE!" like that the entire loud family, and everyone else in the bleachers, blew up into a catastrophic loud road of cheers.

Lynn and her teammates ran around the bases, free to go without fear of being caught out, their opponents too stunned to do anything other than watch. The score board changed to show the new score.

They had won.

* * *

The family talked excitedly as they all sat in burpin burger, celebrating Lynn's hard earned victory. While it wasn't uncommon for Lynn to win at sports the family thought it be best if they celebrated it properly in light of her last loss. This way, Lynn wouldn't dwell on her loss and focus on her current win and future games. Even if it meant inflating her ego further.

Lori eyes her siblings carefully, her gut was telling her that tension lingered throughout them on some deep level. So far the only person to show signs of this was Lana, the young plumber was quietly eating her burger, not really paying attention to everyone else's conversations. The older twin was actuality to her right, to her left Leni talked happily to Lola on beauty tips and everyone else was too wrapped up in their conversations to pay attention to the two of them.

She decided that this would be the best time to speak to her, even if it wasn't the most private place. She leaned over nonchalantly, gently gaining her sisters attention with a tap on the shoulder.

"Everything alright? You've literally not been yourself today." She spoke calmly, although she spoke at a normal volume the rest of her sisters conversations drowned out her words so only Lana could hear her.

"I'm fine, just a little bored. " The dirty twin quickly replied, before hastily stuffing her burger in her mouth, meat sesame seeds and veg falling out of the burger as she ate it. Lori wasn't convinced.

"I think it's a little more than that greasemonkey, if somethings bothering you, tell me or anyone, we'll help you. " Lori took a sip of her drink, letting Lana make her own decision.

"Lincoln..." Lana hesitated for a moment, not sure if she should tell the truth or not. Even though Lincoln hated her, she wasn't going to cause more trouble for him, that wouldn't be fair. " ... he, isn't being himself. "

Ah, Lori understood that well enough. "Lincoln's just a little upset, after everything that's happened recently. He'll bounce back to normal soon, just you wait and see ok?" She turned to try to join in on Leni's conversation, hearing the topic move to nail polish

" But what if he doesn't? " That halted her, she turned back to Lana, a look of mild worry crossing her face.

"Why do you ask that Lana?" Concern filled her voice, she wouldn't say it but deep down Lori feared the same thing, one small part of her was not content with Lincoln's 'punishment'. It was far too harsh.

"I... I don't think Lincoln likes us right now, he keeps locking himself away in his room and won't talk to anyone. " Lana wiped her greasy sleeve over her eyes, only now did Lori realise that Lana was fighting back tears.

Lori pulled her younger sister into a side hug, not caring about the dirt and muck that rubbed off onto her clothes. "Don't worry about it Lana, Lincoln's just a little upset." She gave her a gentle squeeze before releasing her. " I guarantee you Lana, Lincoln will be back to normal by the end of next week at the latest, you'll see. "

Lana didn't respond, only continued to eat away at her meal.

As for Lori, she slowly munched away on her fries. Her thoughts dragged over to her brother, his current behaviour and everything they put him through the last two weeks. It was understandable when Lynn called Lincoln bad luck as she is the most superstitious Loud when it came to luck, Lori figured Lynn was just upset over her loss. Admittedly there was no reason to blame Lincoln for it, hell Lincoln chose to go to Lynn's game over everyone else's activities so he could support her when no-one else was going.

It wasn't their fault that all their activities landed on the same day, so Lincoln had to make a choice.

When Lincoln tricked Leni, well Leni is easily tricked, so it wasn't a surprise that he could but that he did. His, slightly more than obvious, lies regarding his 'bad luck' had actually tricked them, for a while. Lori will admit that she was still a little angry about her broken golf club.

Later that night they all held a sister meeting to discuss Lincoln's behaviour, Lori, Luna and Luan quickly called out his lies after everyone was done retelling what Lincoln said to them. Each sister began to discuss the topic among themselves, eventually they came to the conclusion that Lincoln had wanted 'Me time'. That wouldn't have been a problem had he asked for some, instead of lying to get it.

The eldest girls had decided they needed to punish Lincoln for his lie, the punishment would only continue until he admitted that he was wrong for doing so. Luan, Lynn and Lisa all concocted the plan, in the morning they presented it to their parents and explained the situation to them, they agreed to it with only a few minor changes thrown in.

That's when things went downhill, fast. For the first few days Lincoln always found something positive about the changes made. They shouldn't have been so surprised, Lincoln was always the one to find something good in a bad situation, that's how he made it through each day with ten sisters.

It escalated quickly when Lincoln's room was stripped of the few furniture items it had then boarded up to prevent his entry. That was the point that everyone agreed to end the punishment at, they would have, if Lynn and Luan hadn't convinced their parents that Lincoln hadn't learned his lesson. Lori was sure he had, she saw the look on his face when he saw his boarded up room.

In hindsight, Lori should have oversaw the entire thing, making sure that they didn't do anything too rash or crazy but she didn't simply because she was tired that day.

For the twos days that Lincoln was forced to stay outside Lori worried, worried for Lincoln's sake, worried he would run off any moment cause of how they treated him. She could hardly sleep those nights and nearly every waking moment was spent checking up on him. Even if her sisters aren't aware of her doing so.

Secretly Lori question if her parent were good parents, to have thrown Lincoln out like he was nothing but trash. The look of devastation on his face was enough to crack her heart. Her parents weren't harsh, they were very forgiving actually. Always understanding when they made mistakes as most of them were still learning how to handle the world around them but for the life of her she couldn't remember if Lincoln had been given that same amount of leeway. He does get punished a lot more than their sisters, Lori would admit that.

Those questions were slightly put to rest when their parents explained that Lincoln's punishment for lying was stopping, right there and then. That he had learned his lesson and wouldn't lie again, they even asked the younger girls if they understood the troubles that came with lying. It seemed they too learned lying was wrong, at Lincoln's expense.

Lori hoped that wouldn't become a recurring issue and if it did she was going to say something about it.

While it was true that each of them believed Lincoln had learned a lesson it wasn't _the _lesson they thought he had learned.

"Alright kids, time to clean up we're going home soon, junior don't forget your trophy. " Several of them groaned at their fathers interruption but complied anyway.

Lynn lifted the medium sized trophy from the floor, she lifted it above her head. "As if I'd forget this, I worked hard to earn this, gonna put it strait in the case once we get home. "

"Need I inform you, elder sister, that your part of the trophy case is reaching maximum occupation capacity?" Lisa spoke as she moved some trash to the ever growing pile that would be thrown away by one of her elder family units.

" That's fine, I'll just put it in Lincoln's spot, he won't mind. "

"No you won't." Their heads turned towards Luna who was giving Lynn a small glare. " That's Lincoln's space for his trophies, not yours. "

Lynn scoffed, "please, we all know he's never going to get one. Videogames and comic books don't reward you with trophies, hard work does."

" Sorry Lynn I have to agree with Luna, " Lori held her hand up to Luna to stop her from retaliating. "That space is for Lincoln, and you don't know if he will or won't win a trophy or not. He's still trying to find his talent, put your trophy in your room with the other that are in there. "

"Whatever." The athlete stormed off out the building, trophy in hand, as she made her way to vanzilla. Luna and Lori both shook their heads at Lynn , displeased with her attitude.

The family tidied away their mess before moving out and into vanzilla. There the old family wagon sputtered and coughed as she started, it wasn't long before the Loud family was making its way back home.

"Alright kids." Their mother gained there attention. " your father and I are going shopping after dropping you home, as it's school tomorrow I expect all of you to get everything ready for tomorrow, do any homework you haven't done and have your clothes ready early and make sure to set your alarms. " Rita fixated a look at Lynn when she said 'homework' and one at Luna when she said 'Alarms'

"I don't want any late risers tomorrow, if your late you'll walk to school, understood? "

A chorus of 'yes mom's and 'understood' rang throughout the van as each of them answered her, with the exception of Lily who babbled out noises and happy coo's.

* * *

**A/N: Finally I got this finished. I think I understand true writers block now, I took me forever to get the Lincoln-Lana scene done as I knew how I wanted it to end but not how to get to that point. The same with the softball game.**

**I am going to admit one truth right now, I have never watched a single episode of the Loud House... Until now. I get all my information from the Loud House website, and I was missing out on a lot of details that weren't out on the website.**

**I watched the first episode to see if I had the voices in my head right, I did except for Luna and Luan, I also got a deeper understanding towards Lincoln. Did anybody else notice that in the first episode Lincoln stole Lori's phone to then use it, while she's looking for it, to get Bobby to ring her so she'll be distracted.**

**Also the scene when the twins get scared cause they think a ghost is in the basement is just so pure, like Lincoln comforts them whilst everyone else is just mildly concerned about the dark. Their the only of the younger sisters to be scared as Lucy loves the darkness, Lisa is a realist and doesn't believe in ghost and Lily is a baby**

**This chapter is a little shorter than the rest but only by a little, this was more of less just filler material for the story and to get a slightly more in-depth perspective on the sisters. Sure it encompases two days in one chapter but I didn't want to drag the days out on two chapters**


	4. Chapter 4

If there was one thing that the entire collective human race hated, it was Monday's. The need to rise earlier than humanly possible was seen as one of the most disliked things about monday.

And oh boy did Lincoln agree with that.

On the table next to his bed, the boys savvy themed alarm clock rang out, Buzzing constantly as it tried to pull it's owner from the depths of sleep.

Lincoln groaned as he turned on his side, face turning towards the end of the ottoman that sat close to the top of the bed. Cracking his eyes open slightly, his vision blurred and everything in his room looked disoriented. Never before has he wanted to break his alarm clock but right in this moment he felt completely justified to do so.

In his mind Lincoln knew that he was, metaphorically, sitting on a double edged blade. If he didn't turn off his alarm now then one of his housemates or Lily would be woken up at the ungodly early hour. However, if he turned it off before waking up himself then he'd fall back asleep and everything he planned would go bust.

Sighing, Lincoln threw the blankets off of his body allowing the, slightly lower than average, room temperature air to wash over his body and cool him down. The sudden shift from his warm bed to the cool air made goosebumps appear on his body. Shifting his body till he was sat up, he extended his legs until they fell off the mattress, plopping down and scraping against the carpet floor.

Quickly turning off his alarm so he couldn't wake up anybody else, he relished in the silence. Turning towards the device he took a glance at the time.

6:18am

Normally such a time was far too early to be getting up at but Lincoln had multiple reasons to do so, even if he was kicking himself slightly for doing so. Normally everyone in the Loud House would wake up at seven and then the rush for the bathroom would begin before the morning became truly chaotic. Robbing himself of his warm bed he pulled himself off the mattress, admittedly, he'd like nothing more than to just continue laying in his bed for the rest of the day.

The previous two nights had been utterly blissful compared to the four previous to those.

The problem was that the only way to do so would be to fake an illness but that would mean his ex-sisters would hover around him near 24/7 and that was the last thing he wanted. No he couldn't do that, as much as he hated to say it, he had to wake up early so he could go to school early.

Ugh, he was going to hate himself later.

Reaching down to the ottoman he pulled off his neatly stacked pile of clothes, his notebook, shoes and a few pens. Lincoln knew that once he left his room, he wasn't returning until later that same day.

This time in the morning was one of the only times someone could be awake and hear silence whilst the rest of the houses occupants were present. It gave Lincoln an odd sense of foreboding, like the house itself knew that soon the ten headed best would awaken. He wanted to be gone before that happened.

Silently stepping out of his room, he slowly moved his way down the hall, every few seconds he would look down to make sure none of the family pets were sleeping in the hallway. He did not need them screeching or barking at this hour, not only would it wake his sisters up but the noise might even disturb the other neighbours, especially Mr. Grouse. He sidestepped any loose floorboards he knew about and slowly put pressure onto any board he suspected might have been creaky or noisy, just to be safe.

As he reached the bathroom door he looked back to each door that occupied the hallway, he saw no signs that any had been opened or that any of their residents had stirred awake. Not wanting to waste any more time he stepped into the bathroom, he dressed, did his business, combed his hair, watched his turkey tail flick back up and then grabbed his toothbrush. It wouldn't do much good if he brushed then ate something.

He dumped his dirty underwear in the hamper before picking up his stuff and vacating the bathroom, he didn't need a shower as he had one the previous night whilst everyone else was distracted with an argument between Lori and Leni over the ownership of make up. He would probably never understand girls, despite living with eleven of them.

With his notebook and pens in hand, the ashen haired boy slowly walked out the bathroom before descending down the stairs with caution. He took extra care to not make too much noise as he went down, halfway through his eyes flicked to the empty nail on the wall between Lynn and Lucy's pictures. No-one has commented on the disappearance of his picture but he shouldn't have been surprised by that, back when the photos were taken his parents had completely forgotten to get his own one. He had to go and get his own photo taken, printed, framed and hung up all on his own and out of his own pocket.

No-one had noticed when he didn't get one or when he put his own photo up and now no-one has noticed that he had taken it down. That wasn't the only thing they didn't notice, Lincoln had spent the entire time when they were at the beach removing every photo that had him involved, very few came off of the normal places, like the fireplace mantle or the shelfs, most had come from the family photo album, thank God his parents had the original photos saved, the recreated one's would have made him a laughing stock for the rest of his life... If he wasn't already one. What he assumed would be the most noticeable one was the large photo with everyone (minus the adults) that he had given to his ex-parents for their last anniversary, still none had commented on its disappearance.

Once his foot hit the bottom floor he quickly turned towards the kitchen, passing by Walt's cage carefully to not wake the sleeping bird.

He walked as softly as he could over the kitchens tiles floor, doing his best to not let his shoes squeak or tap too loudly. He placed his stuff onto the 'kids table' before moving for the cupboards, his parents had done the shopping yesterday and as everyone else had burpin burger after Lynn's game they didn't eat much of what was brought in. His eyes quickly glanced over to the trash, where a stray soda cup could be seen sitting on top. He frowned remembering that they had forgotten to bring him something to eat from burpin burger, and they said he was unhealthy. Hypocrites.

Quickly, yet quietly Lincoln rifled through the cupboards, searching for anything he could snack on for breakfast without having to cook anything. Some of those girls; namely Lana, Luna and Lynn, could smell food cooking from a mile away. He needed something he could just eat without fuss. His eyes scanned over every item before finally landing on...

"Pop tarts! Score!" Lincoln's hand quickly clamped over his mouth, anxious that he may have disturbed someone. Thirty seconds passed and with no signs of anyone coming, and he did remember to check for Lucy, he reached in and pulled out the box of chocolate pop tarts.

There were typically five individual packets of pop tarts per box and each would hold two individual pop tarts so that meant there were ten in total, if he took one then everyone but one of his ex-sisters would have one.

His eyebrows furrowed together. "Wait, why should I care who doesn't get one?" As if to answer his question his stomach rumbled, Lincoln had been eating snacks for meals for two days straight, while everyone else got to go for burgers. "I think you're right stomach, I do deserve a little something extra."

Taking one of the packets he stuffed the box back where it belonged, collecting his stuff from the table he made his way to the living room. His eyes glanced up at the clock.

6:42

He had minutes till everyone else would wake up, dropping his toothbrush onto the coffee table he decided to forego brushing for the sake of saving time. Flipping to the back of his notebook he ripped out the last page before placing it next to his toothbrush. Flipping back to the second page he looked over his plan, twirling his pen in his hand, giving a nod of satisfaction he clicked the pen and crossed off the first bullet point.

"Stage 1: Silent weekend. Complete."

Turning towards the door he collected his backpack, stuffed his notebook in before closing it and slinging it onto his back. Slowly he unlocked the door, funny how everyone remembers to lock it now after he was locked outside and not before when he was in the house.

Stepping outside Lincoln quietly shut the door, pulling the packet of pop tarts up he carefully opened the packet, pulling out one of the chocolate treats he took a large bite. Sighing in satisfaction at finally getting something nice to eat, he let his lungs fill with the crisp morning air, Lincoln may not have been athletic but he did enjoy going outdoors from time to time.

Making off for the sidewalk he walked off the front porch, one destination in mind.

School.

"Stage 2: 'Work' overload. Started."

* * *

School, the one place that nearly every child would agree as the most boring places in the universe, a place that offered nothing but boredom and mind numbing pain.

Although Lincoln certainly still fit in that group of people he now looked on at the approaching school with a sense of enlightenment. Going to school was one of the things that would separate him from most of his ex-sisters and of those who also came to his school he could easily avoid, most of the lesson times meant that he would mostly be separated from them save for select groups of minutes throughout the day, that was easily solvable.

Despite the early time the schools doors were actually unlocked, Royal Woods often encouraged parents to drop students off early for before-school activities, the early open hours even made it possible for busy parents to have time to drop off their kids, it even made it possible for students to relax before homeroom started.

Pushing the front door, Lincoln entered the school for the first time in six weeks, even now he could tell the school was mostly vacant, for the next half hour or so. That gave him plenty of time to do what he wanted. He walked with purpose in his steps, occasionally passing a student or two. Lincoln's white hair was often an eye catcher, he got used to the stares quickly and passing glances were often unseen when in a large crowded hallway but now that there was almost no-one, he took notice as everyone looked towards him and his head of white hair.

He could feel the old urge to cover his hair rise up again, something that he hasn't felt in a long time. Lincoln was a master of self confidence... In most cases anyway.

Ignoring the stares he looked forwards, his quarry within sight, the library. The library was always open throughout all hours of the day, ready for students who wished to put its vast collection of knowledge to good use or use the computers.

Lincoln, though, had something else in mind. Quietly he stepped into the library making sure not to disturb anyone present or the librarian. He discreetly made his way between the shelves of books, moving further to the back, only occasionally looking at the signs which depicted what type of books were stacked here. Moving to the very back right corner of the library, a place he knew was not watched by cameras, he spotted the small metal grate that held his secret.

kneeling before it he carefully grasped his fingers between the bars and pulled, the grate disconnected smoothly with no noise, setting it aside he reached into the now exposed hole. Pulling out an A4 plain paper notebook and a stuffed pencil case full of... Well, pencils of all colours, a sharpener and rubber.

This was his greatest secret, drawing, he started doing it some months ago, at first it had been a stressful day, he'd gone into the library for peace and quiet, whilst trying to do some maths homework his hands had started to doodle on the side of the page, then in the top, then between every sentence and anywhere there was space to draw. He couldn't remember what he had drawn just that it was of... Average quality.

The librarian had caught him drawing and offered him some plain paper. Of course, he never took the drawings home, when queried by the librarian Lincoln explained that his (then) sisters were very opinionated on everything he did. Sometimes he wonders why they don't like anything he does but supposed that it was just a sister thing. The librarian herself had shown Lincoln the little hidden hole in the library and that he could use it for his drawing supplies but only if he didn't tell anyone about it, it wouldn't do good if people abused this precious little space.

Replacing the grate, he stood from his spot on the floor before making his way to one of the empty tables. Sitting down, he flipped to the most recently drawn picture, which was about three quarters of the way through the book. The most recent drawing he had been working on had been a portrait of Lucy, the Dutch of darkness herself was stood stoically on the centre of the page, the background contained her side of her room, the coffin like bed, posters of edwin, her bust of Edwin, her poem book resting on the chest of drawers that sat between Lucy and Lynn's beds.

If anyone else were to look at Lincoln's most recent drawings they would say that they looked close to photorealistic and lifelike. Lincoln only saw the picture he had drawn, shoddy, terrible drawings that he believed had thousands of faults.

Flipping the page over he looked at the plain empty page, millions of possibilities to what he could draw, thousands of thoughts that could be expressed by picture. Pulling a standard pencil out he taped the rubber end to his chin a thoughtful look on his face.

In a moment the world around him faded, his problems disappeared, his thoughts blanked and he forget all about his problems. In this state, nothing else mattered. Someone could crash a car in front of him and he wouldn't notice. His pencil glided across the page without pause.

* * *

School had progressed normally, tired, cranky students stumbled throughout the halls and classrooms. Groans rang out whenever the teachers asked about homework.

Lincoln was not one of them, actually, he didn't mind school, he hadn't seen hide or hair of his housemates. So far no-one had picked on him for anything or even talked to him outside of asking for notes on the class, something he didn't mind doing for his sleep deprived classmates.

Now, he was sat in the cafeteria eating his lunch from the school kitchens. None of his friends had joined him yet but he didn't mind. The more time it took for his friends to reach him the more he could eat before being disrupted.

His thoughts were interrupted by a sharp pain in his arm, grunting in pain he clamped his mouth shut to stop himself from crying out loud. He turned towards the source of the impact, there stood Ronnie Anne, a smug smile placed on her face. He rolled his eyes and turned his head away from his not-girlfriend, girl friend. He jabbed his head to the seat next to him without word and she took the invite without complaint. Silence hung between the two of them for a few moments before Ronnie spoke up.

"How you been lame-o, have a good summer?" He turned towards his had been bully, a small tug of a smile graced his lips but he held it back so no-one would get any wrong impressions about the two of them.

Twirling a fork in his hand Lincoln looked into her eyes. "Oh, just like every other weekend, read some comics, played some games, did my homework, joined my sisters in their activities." He took a sip of his drink, letting it cool his throat. "You know, the norm, what about you? "

Lincoln knew he was with holding information from Ronnie, about the bad luck incident but he wasn't sure how much he could trust her with an issue this serious, he had to assess how to tell her and Clyde as well. He knew deep down that what happened to him fell into the spectrum of 'illegal ' and he didn't known how anyone would react if they found out.

The Hispanic girl rolled her eyes. "Skated, played games and was stuck listening to Bobby being all disgustingly sappy on the phone. "

Lincoln groaned. "I know how that feels, remember I'm stuck listen to the other half of the conversation. " Lincoln brought his hand up to his ear, pretending to hold a phone there, imitating Lori's voice as best he could. "Oh, I literally missed you Boo-Boo bear, we haven't talked for like, five minutes."

A smile graced Ronnie's lips as she tried not to laugh, she quickly copied Lincoln's actions trying to imitate her older brother. "I know babe, it may have been five minutes but to me it felt like an eternity. "

The two eleven year olds bust out laughing at their own impressions of their siblings. Once the two of them finally stopped laughing they began to eat in silence, both in slightly better moods then before.

"So, got anything planned Lame-o?" She gave another, though gentler, jab to her not-boyfriends shoulder.

"Yes and no. Call me a nerd but I've been asking the teachers for extra assignments to take home, but I've got free time whenever. " Not two seconds passed before a third, much harder, punch landed on the same spot as the first. He tensed up and hissed in pain, covering the spot with his hand. "What was that for?" There was a hint of annoyance in his voice that Ronnie picked up on.

" Uh, are you a dofus? Why would you ask for extra assignments on the _first_ day back to school? " although she sounded angry Lincoln knew her just well enough to know that that wasn't the case.

Rubbing the sore spot on his arm, he hoped no-one else would punch him there today. "Maybe I intend on staying on top of my grades this semester, maybe I want to push myself academically, maybe I need something to do at home that I know my sisters won't try to get involved with. " Lincoln gently pushed the, now empty, food tray away from him.

Turning towards Ronnie Anne he gave her his full attention. "Of course, i'd rather hang out with friends, play games, read comics and all that but I'm bored of all of that at the moment. "

"Alright Lame-o, spill it, what's going on?" Ronnie crossed her arms over her purple hoodie, giving a look that translated to 'tell me or I'll beat you up' and the punches he already received would be nothing compared to a full beat down.

He held his ground, however, even though he'll regret it later. "Nothings 'going on' Ronnie, I just need something to occupy my time until something exciting happens and considering I was basically at my sisters beg and call all summer I've decided to refuse to do you anything they ask unless it's super important and as I've run out of comics to read and games to play, until new ones come out, I've got to do something. "

That was not a complete lie but not enough of the truth for Ronnie to catch onto anything. He just had to hope she'd believed it.

"Whatever nerd." With that she lowered her arms and relaxed her face slightly. "If your free, want to hit up triple G sometime? Have another try at DDR maybe?"

Gus' grubs and games, a place Lincoln would consider his own personal heaven if he could. Their last game of Dance Dance revolution had resulted in a tie, somehow.

"Sure, I'll let you know when I can go, can't let my sisters know after all. "

Ronnie let out a knowing laugh, having meet Lincoln's sisters enough times to know they like to put their noses in her not-boyfriends business more often than not.

The warning bell rang out, letting the students know they had a few minutes to get to their next class.

"See ya Lame-o."

" Bye Ronnie. "

* * *

At first Lincoln had thought his day was going well, he hadn't seen his housemates all day. And he hoped it would stay that way until he got home, where he could do his homework in peace. He hasn't lied, he really was asking for extra assignments for him but it was more for the sake of his sisters leaving him alone, permanently.

Now though, he walked the empty halls of the school, having forgotten to use the restroom before going to class had come back and bit him on his butt. Doubly so, as he could see Lana and Lola aproaching, hall monitor sashes over their bodies as they patrolled the halls for those who would skip class.

Lincoln thumbed his hall pass, ready to lift it up and show it to them, he was not ready for a confrontation with anyone yet. It was why he was so harsh to Lana back on Saturday, deep inside him his emotions where still raw, pain, anger, sadness and other emotions were like a maelstrom within in.

They had already seen him, he could tell, Lola was already on an intercept course with the white haired pre-teen. And boy did Lola look mad, he could tell that the six year old was putting up a front, the way her face seemed strained to hold her scowl. When there were no more than ten steps between the two of them Lola drew in a breath before bellowing out.

"LINCOLN!"

Lincoln flinched slightly from the volume of Lola's voice, most would not expect the six year old to have the lungs of an opera singer. No doubt her voice carried through to the nearby classrooms and caught people's attention.

Lincoln watched as Lola stalked forwards, the way she stepped made Lincoln realise that Lola had decided to wear heels today, Lola had always gone on about wanting to be able to wear heels everywhere without hindrance, seems she decided to start practising that today or she planned on kicking him up the rear end with them.

By the time she stood in front of him her arms were trembling and she seemed to be struggling to contain her anger, it seemed now Lola wasn't faking her anger any more.

"Where were you this morning!? Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused cause you weren't at home this morning!?"

Was... Was Lola claiming him responsible for whatever had transpired after they all woke up? There was no way he could have done anything whilst he was away. That stirred something in him, an emotion he had to quickly clamp down on to stop himself from doing something he could regret later.

"Ok first of all." He spoke with a mock calm voice, there was still a hint of annoyance mixed in however. "Where I was is none of your business, so put your nose back on your face. Secondly I am not responsible for whatever happened while I wasn't at home, I was gone remember and lastly please get out of my way so I can get to the bathroom, unless you want to be cleaning up a puddle off the floor. "

If Lincoln only knew one thing about Lola, it was that the simplest mention of something that was slightly disgusting was enough to make her run out of the room with the intention to puke. Here, however, Lola simply took several steps back while her face scrunched up in disgust and she tried hard to not gag.

Lincoln took this as his sign to move passed her and continue his journey to the little boys room. Passing Lana on the way he took notice that she had her eyes glued to the floor and wouldn't look up to him, it hurt his heart to see her so down but he had to endure it, if he gave in then they would continue to treat him poorly he wasn't sure what he'd do if all that started up again.

He only made it halfway to the toilets before he could hear Lola speak up again, the sound of her heels thumping against the floor as she tried to catch up to him.

"Do you have any idea what happened this morning? Because you weren't home, dad rushed to get our lunches done and did our sandwiches wrong and then Lynn came along and decided the best way to fix it would be to eat them so we couldn't argue over them. We had trouble getting Lily dressed this morning as she wanted you to do it and you weren't there to, Lisa did another experiment on Leni that made her skin go green and we had to wait for the effects to wear off, which took forever. "

Lincoln simply raised an eyebrow at the idea that Lily wanted him this morning, sure he usually got her dressed as he ran after all his other (now ex) sisters but she never came to him to get dressed he had to flag her down during the chaos. Everything else simply sounded like typical loud family behaviour, Lola was not done though.

"Luan pranked Lori with a blue dye bomb and we had to wait for her to be done in the shower which took forever again, Luna refused to leave until she replaced the strings on her guitar and tuned it and. " Whatever she was going to say was lost in her throat as she pulled her head back and let out a very un-ladylike groan of annoyance.

"And Lana got mud on my dress and now I have to wear this one which is a shade too dark and doesn't match with how pretty I feel today! "

With that Lincoln stopped just outside the bathroom door, hand ready to push it open as he turned back to Lola with a impassive look on his face.

"That's a shame, well nothing I can do to change that, bye." With that he quickly entered the one place in school that none of his sisters would dare enter, not even Lana, the boys bathroom.

The younger twin stared dumbfounded at the door, that did not go the way she expected it to. With a huff she turned away and continued her path down the hall, there was nothing she could do about Lincoln as he had a hall pass. Lana quickly followed her silently, hands gripping at her dirty overalls.

* * *

The end of a school day usually gave students a sense of freedom as they left the premises and returned to their homes to relax before going to do whatever they wanted before the next school day started. For Lincoln, it felt different, knowing that he had to return to the place that held all of his problems gave him a sense of dread. So for this reason he decided to walk home at a slow pace with his best friend Clyde McBride.

"Sorry about not seeing you today Lincoln, first days back are always a hassle. " the two boys were walking side by side down the sidewalk, Lincoln having to walk slightly slower from his backpack being heavier, but not by much.

"Its cool Clyde, we've both been busy today, besides we can easily hang out whenever we want, schools not the only place we can meet up."

The speckled boy pushed his glasses up his nose. " True, but your sisters tend to get in the way a lot and you know how I am around Lori. " even Lincoln could see Clydes slight blush as he spoke about the eldest loud girl, Clydes infatuation with Lori often annoyed Lincoln but he often ignored it in favour of their friendship.

"Normally yes," The haired boy replied as he adjusted his backpack. " But now they aren't going to, cause I'm not going to let them, from here on out Lincoln Loud is doing as he pleases. "

Clyde looked towards Lincoln cautiously, trying to find some unknown fault, he caught a glimpse of his friends relaxed smile and couldn't hold back his own. "That's great Lincoln." He gave his friend a bumb to the shoulder with his own. " Think you got time to come to mine right now? We could play some muscle fish, or get started on all the comics I missed this summer. "

Lincoln gave his friend, and metaphorical brother, a bumb in the shoulder in return. Ronnie Anne really was rubbing off on them. "Some muscle fish sounds great, I haven't had all that much time to play this summer and you need to tell me what happened while you were at your nana's."

" Deal. "

* * *

**A/N: And there it is, the first day back to school. A little more background on Lincoln's plan, a nice and I hope accurate scene between Ronnie Anne and Lincoln.**

**Also has anyone else noticed how in the opening theme of the show Lincoln actually doesn't have a photo when he's sliding down the railing?**

**I've managed to watch up to 'For bros about to rock' and I'm not stopping.**

**One thing however, I don't have access to season 3, is it out yet? Cause I have no idea. So please don't spoil any thing from season three to me please, if it is out**


	5. Chapter 5

With his backpack hosted over his shoulders Lincoln walked his way through the streets, he breathed in a calm breath, one that could only be achieved when one was truly relaxed.

Today had gone, better than expected, Clydes sudden invitation to hang out had given Lincoln a reason to stay out longer, something that he hoped to do a tad bit more. They played muscle fish, took care of Clydes cats, Clyde talked about what happened when he visited his Nana's home for the month during summer. The elderly lady had come down with a bad case of the flu and Clydes dad's had to spend the entire time looking after her, her cats, her home, all the while Clyde was there being a great source of moral support.

Lincoln had talked about his summer too, from the comics to the games, to attending all of his sisters activities/ groups/ clubs/ competitions and everything else they had dragged him to. He did neglect to talk about the bad luck incident, he knew it was wrong to lie to his best friend but if Clyde didn't react in the way he wanted him to, and he couldn't force him to, then everything would go downhill very fast and he hadn't made it to the top yet.

He knew that at the very least, he could be able to rely on Clyde to help him without question but he also knew that that wouldn't last long. He just had to hope that his friends ignorance to his situation would drag on until he was ready to tell them.

Up ahead of him he could see his house come into view, the scattered toys, the dirty lawn, the great big hulking beast that was vanzilla parked out of the garage. Lincoln knew a confrontation was in order, he's been gone since early in the morning and hasn't returned until... Well now. If the clocks at Clydes were accurate, and he doubted they weren't, then it should be roughly between 7-7:30. So while he wasn't late for curfew he hadn't been home in over twelve hours.

He wouldn't be surprised if everyone was waiting at the door for him, they'd done that before. He knew he would be fine, he had his story and all his retorts ready and just like he told Lola, they really should keep their noses on their faces.

It wasn't until he came up to the path of the house that Lincoln began to feel anxious. If he made one mistake here, everything would have been for naught. He had to keep calm but he also had to give off the impression that he wanted nothing to do with anyone else without outright saying it.

With each step he could feel his backpack become heavier, as if gravity itself was trying to keep him away from the place he despised the most. With each step he took deep calming breaths, letting the cool afternoon air fill his lungs and hopefully his confidence. Given that it was still summer the sun had still yet to set, so he knew no-one could argue and say he was out after dark.

When he reached the front porch he could hear scuttling and rapid movement, one of the curtains fluttered and he knew that someone had been keeping an eye out for him. There was no doubt in his mind that everyone was behind that door, waiting for him to enter to give him a verbal beating. He would not let them.

Taking one deep breath he twisted the handle, put on his best blank face, and walked right inside.

Just like he thought, just beyond the doors threshold stood his ex-father Lynn Sr. with each of his daughters behind him, unhappy expressions across all their faces, minus Lana and Lily.

Lynn Sr. stood there, arms crossed over his green sweater, right foot taping impatiently and a stern look on his face. Lincoln shut the door behind him with his foot, took one step forward then waited.

"Well Mr. Disappearing act, mind telling me where you went this morning?" As Lincoln expected that was the first thing said to him.

"School, decided to leave early." Plain, simple and the truth. He did have to strain his voice to stay sounding neutral as the last thing he needed to do now was get upset over a simple question.

"I'm afraid I don't quite believe you Lincoln, school doesn't start until nine and you left at quarter to seven. On top of which you haven't come home till," Lynn Sr. paused to look at his watch, unfolding his arms to do so. "Twenty past seven, care to explain where you were during those twelve hours and thirty five minutes?"

"Actually, male parental unit, Lincoln had been absent from our abode for twelve hours, thirty four minutes and fourty eight seconds to be precise." All eyes turned to the little genius , who stood to their fathers right whilst in front of Luan and Lori.

"Same difference." He waved off the four year old. " Now do I need to ask again young man? "

Lincoln frowned slightly, instant rebuttal of his word although for good reason this time. "I left early this morning to go to school, the library is always open and the doors to the school unlock really early for busy family's who work early hour jobs." He took a moment take off his backpack, it was really digging into his shoulders. "After school I caught up with Clyde. We hadn't seen each other all day as none of our Monday classes are the same. I ended up going over to his as he invited me so we could catch up."

Some of the girls faces relaxed slightly, although Lynn Sr. seemed to still be thinking about it. Lincoln had one trump card to play, no matter what he was going to play it soon he just didn't want to do it right now, not without Rita present anyway.

"I can attest to that." Everyone jumped back from Lucy after she spoke.

" Sigh, you always forget about me. "

After the (unintentional) jumpscare provided by the resident goth everyone took a breath to calm themselves.

"Alright, everyone better?" Lynn Sr. Looked back and forth between his daughters. " Good. Alright Luce, what do you mean by that? "

The goths head turned towards her father, her face emotionless and still. "I saw Lincoln sitting on his own during lunch, Clyde never turned up." Her lips twitched into the tiniest, faintest smile. Something so impossible to see that it had dwindled into myth itself. "Ronnie Anne did however."

Without hesitation Lincoln plugged his ears, Lynn Sr. managing to do the same with just a split second to spare. Seven of the ten sisters bust out squealing at the mention of Ronnie Anne. Lily joining in by copying her sisters, the youngest loud was resting in Luna's arms. Lincoln watched as the sisters continued squealing, mentally counting how long they were lasting for, by the time they stopped he'd made it to thirty seven seconds.

The only two males in the room unplugged their ears once silence followed. Before either of them could say a word the sisters quickly began talking over one another, creating a catastrophic amount of noise. Neither could hear anything they were saying and just before it could erupt into fighting a loud whistle broke out making everyone flinch.

Lori stood there with her whistle between her fingers, a slightly smug smile on her face. Once everyone stopped grumbling she took the lead. "So, you had lunch with Ronnie today huh? Didn't realise you two were dating yet."

In an instant Lincoln's face formed into a frown, no matter how many times he told everyone he and Ronnie were not dating they never listened. " We're not dating, I was having lunch on my own and she turned up, I didn't wait for her nor did I expect to see her. "

Most of his sisters rolled their eyes, clearly not believing him for a moment but they held back from speaking up.

"Alright girls." The adult in the room quickly gained everyone's attention. "Lincoln's girlfriend aside, can we get back to the topic at hand." The white haired boys frown formed into a glare that was directed at his ex-father but only for a moment. It was gone before he faced Lincoln again. "So if I call the McBrides they'll vouch for you, right son?"

" Yes, they will. They'll tell you I was there from after school, that I came in with Clyde, that we both played games and read comics, talked about our day at school and everything that happened over the summer. " He had to drop his card early but he didn't mind, It might just shake them up enough to listen.

And it worked. Lincoln could see Lynn Sr. tense up, jaw tightening and his arms go stiff. Lori, Luna, Luan, Lisa and Lana all flinched slightly and showed signs of nervousness.

The seed had been planted.

He wasn't going to stop there. "I even told Ronnie about my summer, when she asked anyway." And like that a spark of fear could be seen in Lori's eyes. Lincoln figured that if Bobby was willing to break up with Lori over him accidentally hurting Ronnie Annes feelings then he'd do something far worse if he found out about what she did to Lincoln.

Her sisters must have picked up on it too and while he didn't actually tell anyone, just the idea that he could have was enough to scare them because they knew, oh they KNEW it was wrong.

"Now, I've had a long, tiring day and have a lot of homework to do." He clasped his hands together, tying to act like some sort of professional speaker or presenter. "I'd like to get started on it as soon as possible, so if I may get to my room please?" He gestured to the space they all occupied, blocking his path to the stairs.

"Sure sport." The balding adult turned back to the kids behind him. " Go keep yourselves occupied girls, dinner won't be long. "

Like that each of them walked off to return to their own devices, after a moment it was only the two men of the house. Without a word Lincoln picked up his backpack and made his way up the stairs without looking in his ex-fathers direction. Lincoln couldn't be more obvious on his feelings for the less than manly man he used to call dad.

Lynn Sr. Stood there dejected, his son had never acted that way before. He stood around for a few more moments before returning to the kitchen, dinner would not cook itself.

* * *

Upstairs, Lori laid down on her bed, phone in hand and a gnawing pool of worry slowly forming.

For the past hour she had tried to secretly get her boyfriend to tell her about his sister, Ronnie. So far her boo-boo bear had been the same, no hints of malice, no ignoring, he was just his usual self. That helped settle her slightly, if Bobby hasn't changed then that must have meant that Ronnie hasn't told her brother or Lincoln hasn't told her.

She didn't see why Lincoln would bring it up if he hadn't done it, but she couldn't ignore the possibility that he could have. To either Ronnie or Clyde. Lori was old enough to understand the repercussions of their actions. Locking Lincoln outside was classified as child abandonment, she wasn't sure what tier it fell into, if other people were aware then Lori suspected that CPS could get involved.

They'd gotten involved once before, years ago just after the twins birth. There entire neighbourhood had been disconnected from their water due to construction work, it was supposed to last a few hours. It lasted two weeks because the workers went on strike and refused to do the work, although they had been using public washrooms to stay clean and were buying lots of large bottles of water during the whole time it had still made its way round to CPS, it took two months before they backed off, realising that the water situation was not purposeful or their fault.

Lori swore that CPS only cared about removing children from homes and not doing their actual jobs, they always looked for reasons to take kids away from their homes. She could remember being asked questions too, it was low, asking an eleven year old how they were looking after themselves without water. If 'mommy and daddy' were ever mean to her and her siblings and all the other things they did to trick them into saying something that would justify taking them away.

Shaking off that memory she looked around her room, Leni was working away at her desk, several fashion magazines were open and she seemed to be drawing something. A new dress perhaps? Whatever, as long as she didn't use the shower curtains again.

She saw Lincoln glare at their father, he may not have seen it but she did, she was sure some of the others did as well. Lincoln had always taken well to their teasing of his and Ronnie's relationship, as much as he would deny it the two were perfect for one another. But that glare was just... Angry.

She couldn't shake off the look on his face, the way his brows furrowed, his lips dropped own, the nearly uncontrolled anger visible in his eyes. Had Lincoln had a worse day at school than he let on, or was the problem deeper than that, perhaps he was still resentful of being locked outside. Sure it wasn't right and she was going to stand by it until the day she died, but Lincoln had to let it go, learn from his mistakes and put everything behind him.

Their parents had talked to him about it, about what he did wrong and why he shouldn't do it again.

Deep down she couldn't stop the pool of worry from changing into a pit of anxiety. Lincoln was acting way out of character lately, if it progressed any further then they'd have to hold a sister meeting to discuss it and hopefully get to the bottom of it.

Still she couldn't shake off the idea that underneath his cool exterior that Lincoln was seething with emotion, doing his best to keep it in check, perhaps a sister meeting wasn't what they needed but a good one to one between her and Lincoln might be able to help solve the issue.

"KIDS DINNER'S READY! "

Already Lori could hear the foot steps of her siblings make there way down the stairs to get there food. She couldn't blame them, their fathers cooking was fantastic. Slowly she pulled herself off the bed, stretching her limbs as she did so, she could feel them strain slightly from the lack of use but it felt good.

Lori watched as Leni stood up and left their shared room, following shortly herself. Most of her siblings were already downstairs by the time she left her room, her eyes glanced to the end of the hall where the converted linen closet that was Lincoln's room sat, the door was closed and from here Lori could see the scuffs and marks that adorned its surface. Boot marks, scratches, dents and even a split in the wood, she found it odd that only Lincoln's door was like that, everyone else's doors were nearly flawless.

Turning away she decided she'd talk to him after dinner, it would be the best time as he would feel a bit better if he ate something after a long day. As she descended the stairs she could feel a stiffness in her neck, closing her eyes and rolled her head around, feeling and hearing the satisfying pop. However, what she didn't know was that while her eyes were closed she passed the empty spot where Lincoln's portrait used to sit.

When she got to the dinning room, she took notice of their dinner on the table, each member of her family surrounded the long table. They used to use the kiddie table to separate the youngest from the oldest, but after one too many food fights the parents decided to just have everyone sit at the larger table to keep an eye on everyone.

The smell of their fathers cooking wafted up her nostrils, roast beef, Lori's eyes scanned over the entire table. Plates sat across the middle, Roast potatoes, carrots, broccoli, stuffing, gravy boats and last but not least the entire joint of roast beef in the centre, uncut. There was one great thing about their fathers cooking that Lori was envious of, it was all done from scratch, no pre-made anything was brought in this house, the beef seasoned by their father himself, the veg, peeled, chopped and cooked by hand. Lori hoped to one day be able to cook half as well as her father.

As she took her seat between Luna and Lucy she took notice of what was missing, Lincoln. The little mountain top wasn't anywhere to be seen, had he not heard their father shouting? No, it was almost impossible to not hear the call for dinner in this house. Perhaps he was engrossed in what he was doing? He did say he had a lot of homework to do and considering she could see Lisa next to Luan, she wasn't upstairs tutoring him.

"Girls, where's your brother?" Several of the girls directed their attention to their mother then looked among the chairs to look for their white haired sibling.

"Snowflakes probably still in his room," everyone's attention turned to Lynn Jr. who sat at the far end of the table, eyes hungrily scanning over the food before her. "Can we please just send some food up to him, I don't want to wait for him to realise that dinner is cold before he comes down. "

The parents looked between each other, clearly disapproving of the idea, they wanted to eat as a family. It seemed some of the sisters agreed with Lynn a bit.

"Come on, why do we have to wait for him?"

"Sorry, I'm with Lola pops, we just Don't have thyme for this." Luan cracked up laughing. " Get it? "

All of the sisters groaned out in annoyance, their father gave a small smile and ultimately relented.

"Alright, but I want one of you to take it up to him ok?"

" I'll do it. " everyone turned to Lori, she looked back at them in confusion. "What? I literally need to talk to him anyway."

" Just don't take too long, or I'll have your roast beef. " Lori gave a quick glare to the athlete of the house before looking away.

Each girl began to serve themselves food from what was present on the plates, their father using the cutting utensils to carve up the roast beef, making sure to fill up Lincoln's plate as well. When Lincoln's plate was covered in food Lori stood up, accepted the plate from their father before covering the food in gravy, knowing it was how Lincoln liked it.

Without a word Lori turning her way out of the dinning hall and began to climb the stairs. She just hoped that Lincoln hadn't fallen asleep, if he really was as tired as he claimed it wouldn't surprise her but she hoped not.

Turning right at the landing she made a B-line for Lincoln's door. Knocking hard against the worn wood she waited, several seconds passed and she couldn't hear any movement from behind it. Having had enough waiting she pushed the door open, stepping in she took in the sight of Lincoln's near empty room. She frowned at his lack of furniture, to punish someone was one thing but to sell their furniture was just cruel, at least Lincoln went and got the air mattress from himself.

As for the boy in question, he sat on the pillow end of the bed, legs underneath the ottoman table, pages of homework stacked up in two piles while several work books were stacked on the floor ready for use. Lincoln's eyes darted back and forth between the sheet he was working on and the book he needed to complete the work.

Lori was about to speak up again when she caught sight of something in Lincoln's ear, a red and black ear bud.

His Noise-Be-Gone ear buds of course, no wonder he didn't hear anything. He was purposely blocking out noise. Walking over to the bed she gave the side of it a gentle kick, just enough to jolt the bed to get his attention. He looked up from his worksheet, pulled an ear bud out of his ear and looked at Lori.

Several seconds passed before she realised he was waiting for her to talk. Snapping out of her stupor she decided to speak up. "Got your dinner for you, you can either come down to eat with everyone else or stay up here, personally I'd stay away, Luan's already cracking puns."

She watched Lincoln nod before pointing over to an empty space on the table. While she set down the plate he began to put away his homework, Lori stole a glance at the pages and just as Lincoln had said they were in fact homework sheets, not that she didn't believe him.

When she stood up she realised just how awkward the silence made the entire situation, she rubbed the back of her neck to try to encourage herself to speak again. This was her only chance to speak to Lincoln tonight and she couldn't let it go to waste.

"Lincoln." He paused in putting the sheets back in his bag, looking up to her curiously. " I was wondering, if later, that the two of us could talk? I... I want to ask you something, something important. "

Lincoln continued to put away his homework, pausing just long enough afterwards to look Lori in the eyes.

"Maybe."

For a moment Lori was baffled . "What do you mean maybe?"

The ashen haired child sighed, running his hand over his face and only now did Lori realise how tired he looked.

"Maybe, Lori, I need to finish my homework. Maybe I'll fall asleep once I've eaten. Maybe I don't _want _to talk right now, but if I do I'll come to you, ok? "

For a second, and only a second, Lori bristled at the tone he was speaking to her in but quickly let it slide, he'd had a very long day and given recent events he didn't need someone barking down his throat.

"Sure, I know I don't normally come off as approachable but please remember that I'm always here for you to talk to. If you need to get something off your chest come to me and I won't tell mom and dad."

Silence hung between the two of them for a moment. Lori decided that she'd better get downstairs before Lynn made good on her threat. She turned to leave, hand resting on the side of the door before turning back to Lincoln, she watched as he slowly ate his food.

"And Lincoln?" She heard a grunt from the boy, as he mouth was already full. " please don't leave early in the morning again. "

The boy have a small nod to his older sister before she finally decided to leave his room in favour of getting her own food.

* * *

He lied of course.

And he didn't even feel bad about it.

Lincoln sat quietly in the Library of school, pencil in hand as he continued his drawing from yesterday. He'd decided to do a landscape drawing as opposed to a portrait one, as to what he was drawing, he didn't know. The entire thing was all lines, a faint tract of the background could be seen, near invisible lines that only just made shapes. Lincoln was sure that, in time, it would become... something.

Just as sure as he was when he knew Lori was going to give him one hell of a tongue lashing when he got home but it would be worth it.

Lincoln knew that leaving early again was a bad idea, however, the idea of dealing with all them early in the morning was far less favourable then dealing with just Lori in the afternoon.

Time passed in a blur as he continued to draw, the sound of foot steps increased the longer he stayed in the Library and before he knew it the bell rang for homeroom.

Knowing he didn't have time to return his stuff to its hiding spot, he packed it into his bag before vacating the library.

* * *

Lunch time rolled around quickly and unlike yesterday, Clyde was waiting for him at the usual spot the two of them sat at. Today he decided to put his back to the wall, just so he could keep an eye out for any of his ex-sisters. It was bad enough that Lucy saw him with Ronnie yesterday, he didn't need his sisters spying on him as he did his own thing.

Clyde made no comment on Lincoln's choice of seat, instead he decided to get strait into everything.

"Good to see you Lincoln. Sorry about yesterday again, Monday's are hard, especially first days back."

Lincoln rolled his eyes wistfully, no matter how many times he told Clyde he was fine about not seeing him he always took the time to apologise to him whenever he saw him.

"Its fine Clyde really, we can't be near each other 24/7 besides like you said yesterday, none of our classes are the same on mondays."

Clyde nodded at him in understanding before reaching for his drink.

" Still, " the black haired boy continued "would have been nice to see you yesterday, you know? After such a long summer."

" I know Clyde, especially after everything my sisters put me through. " The ashen haired boy leaned back in his seat, his head hanging off the back board.

"Oh, sounds like family drama. Want to talk about it? I'm cool if you don't but as Dr. Lopez says it's better to get things off your chest than to bottle them up. " Typical Clyde, always trying to play psychiatrist for him but what made him great was that he gave Lincoln the choice to decline his offer without repercussion, unlike some people.

"Its alright Clyde, it's nothing big just me getting dragged to all my sisters activities you know? It's really draining when you have ten siblings."

Clyde nodded, he may not have known what it was like to live in a big family but he understood his ex-sisters enough to know how draining it is to be around them.

"Well I guess I can sort of understand. My Nana's got three cats and all of them want attention but not when another cat is getting attention and if I stop giving attention to one to give it to another the cats tend to fight. "

Lincoln chuckled dryly, what Clyde said sounded almost like his sisters. If they were cats.

Sitting back up properly so he wouldn't get a neck pain he scanned over the cafeteria. He couldn't see his ex-sisters anywhere nor did he see anyone that could cause trouble for him, which meant today was going to be ok.

"So Lincoln?" The only son turned his head back to the only child, giving him his full attention. "You got any plans this week? I know it's only tuesday and all but..."

"But nothing Clyde." He drew a small smile to his face, revealing his chipped tooth. " Truthfully, I don't have any plans yet. Well other than... " he paused, taking a moment to look past Clyde and around the cafeteria again. He double checked to see if his housemates were anywhere in sight or worse eavesdropping distance. Then he triple checked to make sure he didn't miss Lucy.

"What you looking for?"

" My sister's. " as much as he hated to say that word, he knew not to display his displeasure of his sisters openly.

Clyde turned back, looking between each table trying to spot the aforementioned girls, when he came up with nothing, not even Lola's sparkly pink dress, he turned back to his white haired friend.

"They're not here, what was you going to say?"

"Well, Ronnie wanted to know if I could go to Gus' at some point, our last match of DDR ended in a draw. But we haven't set up a time to go. "

Ah, now Clyde understood. His sisters often teased him with his friendship towards Ronnie Anne and if they found out he planned on going with Ronnie to Gus' Grubs and games they wouldn't stop fawning over his 'date' with her.

"But you're free for the rest of the week yes?"

"Yes why? You want to hang out at some point?"

"Just needed to know if your sister's were taking you anywhere, I know you said yesterday you were doing what you wanted when you wanted but I just need to know, just in case. "

Lincoln waved off his friends concern, but he understood. In his house Lincoln couldn't get five minutes to himself so suddenly claiming he had all the time in the world to himself no doubt led to doubt.

"Its fine, and no, they aren't taking me anywhere, even if they try. "

Clyde nodded at his long time friend before the two of them began to eat their now cold food, not that they minded in the slightest.

Clyde eyes his friend in suspicion, while he liked this new Lincoln he couldn't help but question what brought it on, it seemed to involve something with his sisters. He would, however, respect his wishes to keep quiet about it until he was ready to talk about it... If there was anything to talk about.

* * *

**A/N: and that wraps up another chapter, so far this is the fastest written chapter I have ever done to date. It took two days, as opposed to my average five.**

**However, please do not expect me to continue uploading this fast again. The only reason this chapter came quickly was because I was extremely motivated to write it and practically got strait to it after uploading the last chapter.**

**One more thing, thank you to all those who informed me about the progress of season three and to those who suggested where I could see the episodes on demand.**

**If I find another spoiler in my comments section again it WILL be deleted like the last one, thank you for ruining that episode for me anonymous guest reviewer.**


	6. Chapter 6

If there was one thing you did not do, it was anger Lori. It was a well known fact that angering the eldest daughter of the loud family was often considered foolish or even suicidal.

But right in this moment, Lincoln did not give one fuck.

Lori paced back and forth in front of the couch, where Lincoln was patiently sitting, his school bag was leaned up against his side. Unfortunately, he couldn't hang out with Clyde today as he had to go to an overdue appointment with Dr. Lopez. Probably to discuss how he was handling the sudden change of going back to school. Lincoln didn't mind, everything worked for him at the moment.

The only problem he saw right now we that his drawing equipment was in his bag, he'd completely forgotten that it was on his person when he left school and only realised it when half way through his walk home. Screw getting in vanzilla, there was no way he was going to put himself into such a confined space with _them._

His eyes darted up to the eldest as she stood in front of him, having finally decided on speaking up.

"I literally don't even know where to start with you Lincoln." Lincoln had to bite his tongue to stop himself from replying, especially since she was using her 'I'm in charge' Attitude.

"You were made aware of what happened when you weren't here yesterday, so what compelled you to, yet again, go off early in the morning?"

Pulling one foot up Lincoln laid it over his other knee, content to get as comfortable as possible. He gave a half hearted shrug, not really bothering to hide that he was bored of this confrontation already.

"I dunno, I felt like it."

And like that he watched Lori tense up, a dozen emotions filtered passed her eyes until she settled on one of them. Anger.

"Lincoln Loud! Do you have any idea how irresponsible what you did was!?"

It took everything for Lincoln to hold his jaw shut, he was sure if he let his tongue loose he would rip right into Lori with a few... Choice words. Sensing that he wasn't going to speak up, Lori continued.

"Not only was it complete ridiculous to leave early it was also literally dangerous. I don't know why your so fixated on leaving so early but you need to understand that you're only eleven, Not even a teenager yet, you can't be out that early without someone older with you."

Lincoln just sat there, unfazed by her outburst, internally he was screaming at her of how ridiculous she was being. Royal Woods had one of the lowest crime rates ever recorded, so he was particularly safe to go where he pleased without risk. The reality was that Lincoln had been out in a far worse situation then being outside early, he spent two nights outside for crying out loud. If Lori though him being outside early on his own was bad then why did she allow everyone to kick him out? Why didn't she let him back in? why didn't she convince everyone to stop?

Lori didn't stop there though.

"Without you here this morning it was nearly impossible to get everyone to the van on time, we only just made it on time to my school, I was nearly late for school because you weren't here to help." Lori started her pacing again, even moving to the other side of the coffee table to walk that but further.

" We need you here in the morning to help us Lincoln, it's difficult getting the twins to behave so early and your one of the few who can separate them. "

"Well I'm sorry." Lori paused, eyes glancing over Lincoln in surprise, it wasn't that he had spoken by the way he had, mockingly, almost as if he was insulted.

"Excuse me?" She stood there, hands on her hips and a stern look in her eye.

Lincoln didn't back down, he looked right into her eyes, crossed his arms over his chest, unfolding his legs and sat up straight.

"I'm sorry that I'm my own person, I'm sorry that I'm doing my own thing, I'm sorry that I'm prioritising myself," at this point Lincoln's voice had begun to rise as his frustration got the better of him, he did his best to keep it in check but that became harder with each passing second. "I'm sorry that all of you are so incompetent to get yourself ready in the morning, I'm sorry I'm not your slave!"

Now he was stood up from his spot on the sofa, he and Lori where opposite each other, with only the coffee table between them. He was aware that he was breathing heavier than normal but didn't find it in himself to care, and he wasn't done yet.

"It''s not my fault that half of you can't set an alarm properly, it's not my fault you all argue over the bathroom EVERY morning!, It's not my fault that the roads are busy during the school rush hour!, And it's not my fault that YOU can't control your sister's! "

The words escaped his mouth faster than his brain could filter them, he did his best to hold his, admittedly angry, look. His little slip with calling them _her _sister's was a big red flag, if she picked up on it. The word slip seemed to pass right over her head, the look on her face was a mixture of infuriated and confused, as if his words were the most outlandish thing that could ever be said.

She seemed to focus on her infuriated side however, instantly ramping up to pissed.

"Lincoln Albert Loud! How dare you speak to me like that! And about your sister like that too!"

_ 'but their not my sister's!' _Was the thought he so desperately wanted to scream at her, to just say it and get everything started so much sooner but he bit his tongue once more. The bigger their ignorance was, the larger the, metaphorical, hammer would be to crush them.

"Well I don't care! You can't keep blaming me for other people's mistakes, you say I'm irresponsible but I take up more responsibility than you do!" Like that he began to pace the length of the coffee table, not taking his eyes off Lori. He knew she would not touch him, not unless she wanted to be grounded for a long while.

"Lincoln! I literally can't deal with you right now! Go to your room and stay there until either mom or dad deal with you."

Lincoln let off one final grunt of annoyance at the eldest loud daughter, grabbing his bag he stormed his way out the living room and up the stairs, not giving Lori a second glance. Half way up the stairs he started grumbling under his breath, imitating Lori's voice as he did so.

"Oh, I'm the oldest so I'm in charge and always right."

" I'm the only one who can drive so you have to do things for me. "

"I don't care if you have a problem I am literally talking to Bobby right now."

Without realising it he had spoken just loud enough for someone else to hear him, and it was one of the ones he wanted the least contact with at the moment .

"Ha ha, good one Linc." He turned towards the resident comedian, she was at the top of the stairs, just in front of him with a glowing smile that revealed her braces. " I gotta say, I'm impression-d. " Luan bent over laughing, slapping her knee before straightening up and holding her hands up slightly. "Get it?"

Unfortunately he did, he also didn't find it funny and he really wasn't in the mood right now after dealing with Lori. His conversation with her was more her letting off steam on him and then complaining when he got hot because of it. Without the energy to deal with her he couldn't bring up any words to say to her, so he settled for giving her a sneer as he walked past her and towards his room.

He didn't look back behind him the entire way, once inside his room he used his foot to slam the door shut, the broken latch damaging the door frame even further.

Luan stood there in the hallway, frozen in place still holding her previous pose. Never before has someone sneered at her for telling a pun, sure they groaned and got annoyed but that just proved they were good puns. Lincoln's reaction said something else entirely, sure it wasn't her best pun, actually it was pretty low on her list of usable puns, but Lincoln's look alone had hit her hard. Her buck teeth bit into her bottom lip as her nerves recovered.

In hindsight perhaps it wasn't the best time to crack puns around Lincoln, she certainly wouldn't be in a good mood after Lori grilled her out. Still, she was only trying to put a smile on his face again or at least nudge him towards getting out of his bad mood.

Resigning from her spot in the hallway, she returned to her room and sat at her desk. Sat next to her clown phone was her planner. Despite it being only tuesday she was already mostly booked for the rest of the week, she had today and Thursday off, she had a party for a boy on Wednesday that was happening very shortly after school hours so she herself would be in a massive rush to get everything set up. Friday was set up with some twin girls and she had a double booking on saturday, both of which were on opposite sides of royal woods

Suffice to say she had to give Lori a lot of I.O.U's to make up for the travel that would be undoubtedly necessary, she wasn't happy about driving her everywhere but always made sure to cash in the I.O.U's whenever she could.

She was hoping that Lincoln would come to at least one of these, to help draw back on her workload and hopefully, put him back into a cheerful mood, she hadn't seen him smile in almost a week or maybe even over that. It was so unusual to see him be anything other than positive unless it was really early in the morning. You know? One of _those _mornings.

If he wasn't in the mood to groan at one of her puns then chances were pretty slim he wanted to help at a birthday party. She just had to wait for him to cool off then try to get him on board, she was thinking of involving him on Saturday, so while he would do double the work he would also gain double the reward. Two parties. Two cakes. Two cash sums. What wasn't to like?

Well, there was Lori who never permitted free rides to anywhere, but what was two or three more I.O.U's on top of the ones she already owed Lori? If Lincoln was helping her, then she should take the 'travel tax' maybe even give Lori some cake if it was a chocolate one.

She just had to hope that he would agree to it, she wasn't sure how she was going to get Saturday done without an assistant.

* * *

In the converted linen closet, Lincoln was fuming.

Pissed did not describe how angry he was, while he knew Lori would be angry at him for not staying home early in the morning he wasn't sure how to describe exactly what just happened.

That wasn't Lori berating him for not listening or refusing to do as he was told, that was her complaining that he wasn't there at their beg and call. And that infuriated him, he didn't exist to make their lives easier, he lived to live his own life and they needed to remember that.

He needed to find some way to let off steam, but when confound to his extremely small room there was nothing he could do that wouldn't draw attention and he had nothing to do outside the house. He was sure that if he tried to hold a comic he'd crumple it under his grip, he'd stress unnecessarily at his video games and probably throw it, he'd tear his homework in halve if he looked at it right now and he didn't need to explode at anyone else who lived under the same roof as him.

All things considered all he could do was sit on the air mattress and fume, unless he wanted to risk the destruction of his own property. This entire situation reminded him of the sister fight protocol, the time when Lori and Leni essentially blocked off the house so they could cool off. When things escalated the girls began to block off more rooms, specifically his, even going so far as to kick him out of his own room for the sake of the protocol.

What made the whole thing worse was that he didn't have a single clue as to how the sister fight protocol was supposed to work, they had kept Lori and Leni in the kitchen and bathroom for the better part of the day, basically banning him from eating or using the toilet. Then they took his stuff and when he tried to set things straight and help they told him to butt out and mind his own business. He was, until they took his stuff.

What hurt the most though, was that when he came back and Lisa had explained they had managed to calm down and settle every BECAUSE he had left, like he was the primary cause of the fighting and continuously kept encouraging it, he didn't.

Taking deep breaths, Lincoln tried to force himself to calm down, he did have to remind himself that he did, kinda, sorta, accidentally make things worse, three times but he was only trying to help two of those times and the third was a complete accident. He knew he didn't have to blame himself for that, given how the girls always reacted to anything negative.

Forcing himself to forget about the whole sister fight ordeal he let his eyes wander around the room, plain empty walls stared back at him, the small high up window was letting in just enough light to illuminate his room and the stacked boxes only reminded him of his lack of furniture, if the near empty room itself didn't do that on its own of course.

He was interrupted by the sound of his doors latch scrapping against the frame, his head turned to see it slowly open, he was ready to tell whoever was coming in to get out but stopping short once the culprit peaked around the corner. Lily's head poked around the door and once her eyes landed on her older brother, she let out a cute giggle and ambled her way into the room, her lavender blanket in tow.

In an instant Lincoln's anger faded away as he watched Lily come into his room. The diaper clad baby loud seemed very intent on getting close to Lincoln and he didn't try to stop her.

She let out a few baby babbles. "Wincon." Was the only real word he got from her, but he didn't mind, he loved hearing her say his name. Stretching his arms out he invited the baby to a hug.

"Come here Lily, you want a hug?"

At the prospect of getting a hug Lily let out a cute quiet squeal before dropping her blanket, climbing up the mattress and ultimately falling into Lincoln's waiting arms, where she rested her head against his shoulder.

Lily loved getting hugs but she loved Lincoln's hugs the best, they were always warm and soft, unlike most people who hug her. She may have only been fifteen months old but Lily understood her family enough to know something was wrong with her brother. She wasn't smart but she knew hugs made everything better.

Lincoln smiled as he felt Lily nestle into him, slowly the two of them adjusted until she was sat on his crossed legs. Lincoln wouldn't have minded sitting like this for the rest of his life, just being there, hugging the tiny tot until the end of days itself.

Of course everything gets ruined eventually.

"Lincoln."

The boy and baby both let out surprised yells, Lily falling off Lincoln's legs and into the soft blankets below while Lincoln's head shot back into the wall, knocking it rather hard against it.

There stood at the door way was Lucy, the resident goth was as blank and monotone as ever. Despite her hair covering her eyes Lincoln was sure they had been twinkling at the cute hug he and Lily were sharing. Lincoln simply sat up straight, rubbed the back of his head and groaned when he felt a small pain from where he bumped it against the wall.

Lucy took his silence as an invitation to speak.

"I need some help with my poems." Her soft quiet voice rang around the room. " I need a word that rhymes with doom."

He just looked at her for a second, wanting so desperately to just push her out his room and not say a word but a better idea came to mind.

"Okay," he spoke with mock enthusiasm as he stood from the bed. "Rhymes for doom."

" Yes, I know a few but none of them are what I'm looking for, they're just not... Dark enough. "

"How about this?" He gestured to himself. " I'll say the poem that I have, then you take inspiration from that to find your missing dark words. "

Knowing it wasn't what Lucy wanted, Lincoln quickly spun her around put his arm around her shoulder and began a slow walk out of his room and towards her and Lynn's shared room as he begun to speak his on the spot poem.

_Here I have a poem for you,_

_This goes for the others too._

_Unless you would like to meet your tomb,_

_Please stay of my room._

The two hadn't made it three steps from Lincoln's door by the time he was done and once he was he gave Lucy a slight shove forwards, causing her to have to catch herself by bracing her foot on the floor. Lincoln took the moment to turn back around and enter his room, slamming shut just as Lucy's head turned to face him.

"What about Lily?"

Not a second passed before Lincoln's door opened again and he fixed Lucy with an emotionless gaze that could rival her own.

_Worry not for Lily,_

_To harm her would be silly._

Just like that Lincoln's door slammed shut again, leaving her alone in the hallway.

"Sigh, once more your poetic brilliance puts me to shame, I'll have to write that one down. "

She, of course, did not miss the subtle threat mixed in or was he trying to be dark on purpose? The small shove she received said otherwise.

She decided, she would sit on it for now, then bring it up in the next sibling meeting on friday.

* * *

Back in his room Lincoln sat on his bed patiently, he could feel Lily's weight move around behind him as she crawled in and out of the many blankets on his bed. He was expecting someone to come busting into his room after what he did to Lucy, to tell him off for giving her a gentle shove. So far nothing had come of it, either Lucy hasn't told anyone yet or no-one thought it was a big deal, and it really wasn't, the twins constantly fought one another and Lynn was always launching balls at people's faces, so a small shove in the Loud House was comparable to a slight tickle in anyone else's homes.

With nothing else to do he turned back to Lily and watched her as she maneuvered between, under, over and around the many blankets he had taken for himself. He watched as the little bump under the blankets moved around without direction until Lily's golden tuffed head poked out and gave a one toothed grin in his direction. The sight alone was enough to melt his heart, no matter what Lily did, Lincoln would never be able to hate her.

Feeling that his mood had increased some he scanned the table top, his eyes landed on his phone, the old orange flip phone hadn't seen any use since he came back inside but he had been sure to block everyone else numbers on it regardless.

Swiping the phone off the table he powered it up and scrolled through his list of contacts, ignoring those who he had blocked, aside from those numbers he only had a few that he could contact.

Staring at the number on the centre of the screen he bit his bottom lip, contemplating weather to call or text, texting was safer, no voice, no emotion, no pain.

Clicking on the number he began to text Ronnie Anne.

L: Was wondering if you're free friday? Thinking of taking up your offer on Gus'

He clenched his jaw together tightly, Ronnie Anne was not one for mushy girly stuff, so he had to play his words carefully to ensure she didn't think he was asking her on a date.

R: Sure. Time?

L: Thinking right after school? blow off steam ready for the weekend.

That would work for him, he wouldn't have to go home early and he'd get to blow off some of the stress he was working up. DDR was a good way to completely exhaust yourself, so that way weather he won or lost to Ronnie he should still be in a better mood.

R: Sounds good, anyone else joining?

Lincoln could see right away what she was getting at, she didn't want people to get suspicious or assume something was going on between herself and him, so if they were in a larger group she could claim she was trying to pull a prank on Lincoln while he hung out with his friends, if she was seen near them that was. Few would dare spread a rumor about Ronnie Anne lest they wish to receive a knuckle sandwich from her.

L: not yet, I'll ask the others if they want to join.

He wasn't sure who would join him or if anyone would but he quickly began to cycle through his contacts and message the appropriate people, half way through he came up with an idea. Going back to Ronnie he proposed it to her.

L: Even split bill?

R: yeah, fairs fair.

That sorted that, that way everyone would put forwards the same amount of money and have an equal amount of fun, so no one person would be left dry after friday. He cycled back through his contacts again, sending the plan to everyone else.

It didn't take long before he received multiple answers of different varieties. Quickly tallying who was doing what and what solutions were available for them.

L: Liam's got chores to do on the farm, Zach's willing to come, Rusty's got to babysit his brother Rocky but if it's cool with you to bring him he can join us, Clydes currently MIA.

R: Whatever, tell rust boy that the pebble can join in.

Lincoln had to stifle the laugh that threatened to come out of his mouth but he couldn't stop the smile from spreading on his face. No-one has ever called Rocky 'pebble' before and honestly it fitted so perfectly to both be affectionate and insulting.

"Never change Ronnie, never change."

Hopefully everyone would be able to stick to the plan and not have something come up and interrupt them.

His own attention was interrupted by a weight settling across his legs, Lily laid across his legs stomach down, as if she were trying to crawl across him.

"What is it Lily?"

" Ili Poo-Poo " The tiny tot giggled and clapped her hands together, in an instant a rank smell invaded his nostrils. Realising exactly what she had done Lincoln's face contorted into disgust.

"Aw, Lily!"

* * *

Sleep did not come easy for the resident mechanic.

Ever since she had gone to the beach it had been much harder to get any sleep at night, her gut would twist and clench, guilt would find her during the late hours of night and she wasn't sure why.

Why at night? Why when she was trying to sleep? What did sleeping and her guilt for Lincoln have in common?

That was something she couldn't place, cause there didn't seemed to be anything to connect them together.

She laid there in her bed, her back facing her twin Lola, the pink princess had been acting as if nothing had been happening, as if nothing had happened and it was annoying, the only thing stopping Lana from confronting her about it was the very guilt that made her attitude a problem. A double edged blade if she ever saw one.

There was even something worse then her guilt, the nightmares... Or what she thought was nightmares, on some days she would wake up with dried tears on her cheeks and she'd be even more down then usual lately. She didn't know what her nightmare was about, just that whenever she woke up it would always escape her. Sometimes when she woke up she'd think hard about what her head had been conjuring up and only ever came back with three things, a head of white hair, a door and a shake of a hand.

She knew the head of white hair would belong to Lincoln and that he must have been a recurring theme in her nightmare. She didn't understand what a random door and a hand shaking meant for her nightmare. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't summon up the nightmare by force. Time and time again she woke up in a worse state than the previous day.

She has gone to Lisa and asked about her problem, however, she did so discreetly. And although she didn't understand the scientific monologue that Lisa went on about for the twenty minutes that she had been there, she did leave understanding the general idea as to what may be happening.

Her brain, for whatever reason, was purposely making her forget her nightmare to protect her. Lana question how such a thing was possible, she knew people forgot things regularly but for the brain to purposely forget something?... She didn't understand that.

Lisa had, once again, gone on a rant about traumatic experiences and stress and a whole bunch of other things that really just flew in one ear and out the other.

Ultimately the little grease monkey left the room understanding that her brain would not let her remember it, yet, and that it might be caused by stress or something really scary.

She hasn't been scared recently, unless you count Lucy's sudden appearances, and she didn't feel stressed, whatever that felt like. So was it possible that her nightmare was that scary that she had to forget it? It didn't make sense, if her nightmare was that scary her brain should have forgotten to show it to her and that would be the end that. At least, that's what she kept telling herself.

Without much to do when awake at this time of night, Lana began to plan out her day for tomorrow; she'd get up, feed the pets their breakfast, hopefully by the time she was done the line to the bathroom would be so long no-one would notice that she didn't join it, she'd get dressed in her usual attire, eat her breakfast, brush her teeth then they'd be off to school before they knew it.

Hopefully Lincoln would still be present in the morning, as much as she hated to admit it, she couldn't look at her brother. She was too afraid to, too worried that the only look she'd see be his disapproving glare, or uninterested eyes. It hurt to know that he hated her right now, that he probably also hated everyone else too.

To some small degree, she could understand if Lincoln hated Lynn, she had caused this entire ordeal in the first place. Okay, that was a bit of a lie, she understood how Lincoln could hate Lynn at LOT, she probably hated the jock just as much as Lincoln himself did.

With an angry frown plastered onto her face, Lana rolled over, her movements attracted the attention of her pet frog hops who decided to jump up and onto Lana's face, the six year old did not bother to move him, she quite enjoyed the company.

In the midst of the night the young mechanic dropped off into a, hopefully, dreamless sleep. Her best friend and pet hops sat on guard on her face, waiting and watching for the bad dreams to come.

* * *

**A/N: And that wraps up another chapter, honestly this took much longer than I wanted it too but I'm glad I got it done.**

**I have two things to say, I want to change the thumbnail for the story and I'd appreciate it if someone could commission some fan art for it (Yes that's a tall order I know) if anyone's interested please PM me so we can talk about it, don't fill the reviews with spam about fan art.**

**Speaking of reviews, to the anonymous reviewer named 'Loud hater' your reviews were deleted because I did not want them in my review log. Although I expressed to see reviews that pointed out flaws and mistakes and give general advice and/or headcanons. I DO NOT appreciate seeing the things you wrote, next time you write a review make sure it's positive feedback, a critical review or an actual proper idea for me to use and not like the other things you put.**

**Any reviews that match those previously sent WILL be deleted, and this warming goes out to anyone else who may try to do the same thing as 'Loud hater'**

**One word of advice though, if you really hate the Loud House fandom, GET OFF THE LOUD HOUSE FAN FIC PAGE AND GO TO A FANDOM YOU LIKE!**

**That is all for this public service announcement.**


	7. Chapter 7

Lincoln walked the halls of his school, a small, calm smile plastered to his face. He felt much better today then he had on tuesday, for today was Friday and he had plans to meet up with his friends after school at Gus' grubs and games.

Not only was he going there right after school finished but Ronnie Anne was also joining them, the idea was entirely hers originally but the two of them had both planned it out so that they and their friends could have a blast right after school ended.

Wednesday and Thursday had proven just as difficult to Lincoln as Monday and Tuesday had, with some minor changes here and there. So in preparation of a, hopefully, relaxing weekend Lincoln planned to completely exhaust himself at Gus' that way he would wake up rested and relaxed on Saturday.

Right now however, Lincoln was trudging his way over to where his next class was, passing by other students going on a manner of all directions and having to step around those that stood in the center of the hallway. Truthfully his next class didn't start for the next hour as he had a free period right before it, however, as his last class was art he wouldn't mind going earlier than usual, if the class was occupied he would move off to the library if not then his teacher Mr. Dawkins would be present, marking and grading work from half the schools students, as one of the only two art teachers in school he was often swamped with work to grade.

When he arrived to his destination he found the room empty -much to his delight- save for his teacher at his desk and what looked to be a stack of paintings from one of the younger grades. Giving a gentle knock on the door he waited for several moments.

"Enter"

Without any hesitation he opened the door and stepped inside slightly, holding one of his feet back to keep the door propped open should he need to leave again.

"Ah, Lincoln." Mr. Dawkins stated as if he were surprised. The tall man was wearing a simple paint covered long sleeve T-shirt, black jeans and sneakers, all covered in paint. Mr James was not one for sticking to the schools normal dress code, as any clothes he would wear would be covered in paint, chalk, crayon and whatever else could be used in art class. "Class doesn't start for another hour, what are you here for?"

" I was wondering, sir, if I may start early? I've got a free period and nothing to do so... " he trailed off, unsure as to what to say next. He was certain his teacher wouldn't mind, he often tried to get kids to embrace art with a passion instead of treating it like the 'fun' class the students saw it as.

A goofy grin plastered onto his teachers face for a moment. "Of course my boy, sit, sit. I just get you some stuff."

With that his teacher stood, towering over everything in the room with his lanky frame, he begun to make his way over to the supply closet where everything was kept. Lincoln walked in, closing the door behind him and made his way over to one of the desk's at the front of the classroom, it would be rude to sit further back.

"So tell me Lincoln, what would you like to do, paint, draw, watercolour? There's a lot one can do when it comes to art." The teacher spoke as he was halfway through the closet.

He thought about that for a moment, he could paint, but he wasn't very good at it. Watercolour was too wet and unpredictable for his taste and it would be difficult to do anything with it.

"Is it possible for me to get an early start on today's work? I don't want to fall behind." Which was true , all week Lincoln had been dealing with his extra assignments and standard homework that he was almost falling behind with it, he'd handed in the last of it today so he didn't need to do anything over the weekend. All the time he took doing his homework was less time his ex-sisters could try to use to be near him, which they had actually tried to do quite a bit.

His teacher emerged from the closet, with paper and pencils in hand. He quickly strode over, placed the utensils down before turning back to his desk, grabbing another piece of paper then handing that off to Lincoln.

"I had planned on teaching everyone about alignment and symmetry during drawings," his bony fingers tapped the page Lincoln had placed next to the plain paper. " this shows how to do it in several different ways but also how to draw faces and hands properly, the number of times I hear people complain about it is far too many. " his teacher shook his head with a small amused smile on his face.

"What I want you to do is try to use these examples to draw a person, the original task was to draw the face of the person opposite you but since your on your own... You'll have to draw me instead, or yourself if you want me to fetch a mirror."

Lincoln thought about it for a moment, he could do either but Mr Dawkins was grading work so it would be unfair to pull him away from it, cause if he didn't finish today he would have to take it home to complete.

"I'll draw myself, so you can keep working."

His teacher nodded before quickly leaving the room to fetch the item, the snow haired child took his time to read over the worksheet he had been handed. On it was the details as to how to draw a perfectly symmetrical face and how to draw eyes correctly , unlike how ninety percent of people tended to draw one eye at a time this said to draw both at the same time doing to the second eye exactly what he did to the first.

Initially he thought the worksheet would have revealed something new and groundbreaking for him to improve himself but it was stuff he already knew or had figured out on his own. He remembered having problems drawing eyes so he had decided to slow down and do them together, just as the worksheet said to, he eventually did the same to hands for what few drawings had identically placed hands.

He snapped out of his musing when a small mirror was placed before him, the teacher and student gave each other a smile before both returned to their duties. Lincoln noted that Mr. Dawkins had brought back an entire box of mirrors with him.

He looked at himself in the mirror, doing his best to hold a blank face so he wouldn't draw a picture that depicted too many clashing emotions. The moment his pencil hit the paper he melted into his work, carefully he drew the outline of his head in a faint light trace, then the outline of his hair making sure to include his sideburns and Turkey tail. Time passed in a blur and bit by bit his self portrait improved and became more detailed with faint lines and slight adjustments, halfway through he completely forgot about the worksheet, choosing to draw from experience.

Silence followed as the two occupants of the room steadily worked away, Lincoln was only vaguely aware of the bells ringing around him and he all but blanked out the other students as he continued to work, he was unaware of his teacher going around and passing out the sheets and mirrors, he couldn't hear anything save for the scratching of his pencil on paper, everything else meant nothing.

* * *

With grit teeth, Lincoln waited outside the front of the school for his friends to arrive. As planned, the group would go from school strait to Gus' grubs and games and that meant the whole group had to get together. That would have been fine on its own if it wasn't for the fact that his ex-sisters were standing just thirty steps away from him, waiting for the massive form of Vanzilla to show up.

It didn't help that he could feel someone's eyes on him at all times and he silently prayed none of them would approach him. The past three days had proved slightly difficult when it came to them. Despite Lori telling him not to, Lincoln still left as early as he could so he could spend his time drawing in the library before school started and Lori had on Wednesday had another go at him for being _irresponsible_. She didn't bother to try to lecture him on Thursday and he was sure she wouldn't try again today.

Lana, Lucy and Lynn were the only three who left him alone completely, Lola, Leni, Luna, Luan and Lisa had entered his room several times each asking (demanding) he do something for them and each time he refused or ignored them. On the second and third, and in Lola's case fourth, time they entered his room uninvited he would 'escort' them out of his room or just slam the door before they could properly step in.

It seemed that Lucy hasn't passed on the message that he didn't want anyone in his room, except for Lily, she was welcome all the time.

Lincoln didn't have to wait long before both Clyde and Zach joined him outside the school. The three greeted each other with a fist bump before Zach and Clyde began to talk aimlessly about how there day at school went and about all the homework they would need to do. Lincoln knew he wouldn't have to do any homework over the weekend as none of the teachers had been prepared for him to ask for extra assignments so they just handed him the weekend work early.

Minutes passed and Lincoln was less interested in the conversation behind him, his eyes glanced over to the girls. None of them were directly looking at him, Lisa was far too engrossed in whatever calculations she was doing, Lola was staring at herself in her small handheld mirror, Lucy was just... Standing there, creepily. Lana was sat by the curb waiting.

If there was one thing he regretted, it was how he treated Lana when they came back from the beach. Admittedly she had done nothing but try to talk to him, sure he was more bitter back then but no-one could blame him, if they were aware of what was going on. He had to hold out though, he couldn't give in and forgive any of them without significant reason, otherwise all of them would expect an apology and then brush off the entire situation.

It has been over a week since he's been let back in the house, it surprised him how fast the time has gone despite how slow each day felt. Within that entire week the only thing _they_ did was invade his privacy, demand his attention and try to scold him. He didn't want to have to go and do anything drastic to get them to realise what they had done but if they didn't act like they were aware of the... Changes, then he'd just have to outright tell them.

He was brought out of his musing by the sounds of a loud horn blasting, looking around he saw the hulking frame of vanzilla sitting in front of where the girls had been. In the driver's seat was Lori, who seemed to be trying to get his attention, he ignored her as he turned back to his group of friends, taking note that Rusty and Rocky had joined them now.

"LINCOLN!"

The sole son turned back to the tank like van, giving an uncaring look to an irate Lori.

"GET YOUR BUTT IN THE VAN YOUNG MAN!"

He ignored her, turning his back to the van and facing his group, ready to wait for Ronnie Anne to arrive. His friends were giving him curious looks during the whole exchange. He said nothing until he heard the vans door open forcefully, turning back he saw Lynn stomping her way across the tarmac. He tensed instinctively, ready to receive any type of blow the athlete could deliver, or at least try to.

She hasn't made it within five steps before Lincoln could feel the presence of someone on each side of him, quick glances revealed both Rusty and Zach to have taken up to supporting him. The prospect of going up against three people, although possible for her, seemed to cause her to stop in front of them, just outside of reaching distance. It was moments like this that made Lincoln realise his friends would always have his back, and he would have theirs too.

"Lincoln, get your snow covered butt in the car, now." The athlete pointed fiercely at the family wagon. " Everyone's going to Lola's pageant and we don't have time to wait for you. "

Lincoln rolled his eyes, no wonder Lola was so keen to get to him, she probably wanted him to be her coach again. "No thank you Lynn, I've already got plans and I'm not disappointing my friends, tell Lola I'll be there in spirit."

Lynn's eye twitched. " Lincoln, I swear down, if you don't get in that van in three seconds I'll... "

"Do what exactly?" He interrupted. " You gonna drag me to the van or are you gonna do what you did last time I said no. "

She huffed, crossing her arms in an attempt to play coy. "I don't remember anything like that happening."

" Really? " He crossed his arms, gaining a bump in confidence when he realised she couldn't do anything to him without getting in trouble. "Let me jog your memory; Softball game, Ace savvy VS card shark, me saying no. Any of that mean anything to you?"

"Not one bit." She added an additional tut onto the end of ' bit ', her tone however spoke of how she knew she was lying, she knew what he was on about.

And in that moment Lincoln realised that the two of them were the only two who knew that she had threatened him. For all intended purposes, he held blackmail material over Lynn's head and she knew it.

"Then I suggest you go, before I have to remind you of it. In front of everyone."

Lynn huffed, turned, then stomped her way to the hulking van, where every one of his ex-sisters sat. He watched as she got in, slammed the door and sat in her seat. He saw several of the girls talk to each other, gesturing to him occasionally until suddenly, they drove off.

Lincoln didn't relax until he could no longer see the family wagon or hear it's engine roar. When he was certain they were gone he felt his shoulders relax, tension he didn't realise he as holding onto faded away and he breathing evened out.

He turned to look at both Rusty and Zach, seeing the looks of confusion plastered on their faces. "Thanks guys, for having my back."

The two smiled at him and nodded, no less confused and no less curious but they held off asking. They knew Lynn could be a handful at the best of times.

"Its cool man," Rusty supplemented, giving Lincoln a half hard part on the back. "You'd do the same for us anyway."

And he would, despite the ups and downs he and his group of friends went through, at the end of the day they stick together

He turned to face Clyde and Rocky only to stop in his tracks, stood just in front of Clyde was Ronnie Anne, arms crossed over her chest and a stern look on her face, her ponytail moved slightly in the slight breeze. He tried looking to Clyde for help but his best friend was off in his own world, eyes screwed shut, hands covering his ears as he hummed a tune. Clearly he was trying to NOT acknowledge Lori when she was here.

The Hispanic girl crossed the two steps it took to reach Lincoln, jabbing a finger in the centre of his chest. "We'll talk later" it came out like a growl but he understood none the less, he would - of course -steer her away from the truth if he had to.

* * *

Gus' grubs and games wasn't nearly as packed as Lincoln first though it would be. With school having just let out for the weekend he expected to see at least a few more people in here than he did but he didn't complain.

During the walk here the entire group had talked joyfully about their plans for the weekend, little was actual said to Lincoln despite him being involved in every other conversation. There was a sense of awkwardness between him and them after Lynn's 'visit', they knew _something_ was up but they didn't have the courage to ask, it was an issue between Lincoln and his sister Lynn, or so they thought.

"Remember, even split bill." Clyde gently reminded them.

It didn't take much for each pre-teen to pull out a five dollar bill and contribute towards paying for their tokens, splitting them evenly among themselves, Rocky included.

Ronnie quickly dragged Lincoln to the Dance Dance Revolution machine, clearly just as eager to have a go on it as he had been throughout the entire week.

"Alright Lame-o, ready to have your butt kicked again?"

Lincoln smiled as he set his feet onto the Dance pad. "Only if you are Ronnie, cause I don't plan on losing."

The ponytailed Hispanic girl quickly stuck her tongue out in a rare show of childish behaviour before trying to land a jab on his arm, missing as Lincoln leaned out the way with a laugh.

" Don't get full of yourself Loud. "

Before he could respond the game loaded up the chosen song. The same one the two of them had played on the night of the Sadie Hawkins dance, it didn't take long before his feet fell into a rhythm, his upper body and arms conforming to the dance just as well as Ronnie was.

"So what's going on between you and Lynn?"

For a split second he turned his head towards his not-girlfriend, noticing how she was focusing on the screen instead of him.

"Nothing, it's just..." He tampered off, focusing more on trying to get ahead of Ronnie in their little dance spar.

"Its not _nothing _Loud, you never stand up for yourself. " he could hear the emphasis on 'never' and she was right, he would often wait until a situation blowed over instead of confronting the one who caused the problem or even stand up for himself when faced with a less than friendly encounter with someone.

"It's not your concern Ronnie." He saw her head snap to him in a moment of disbelief, he continued before she could start. "I'm dealing with it on my terms, it's just nothing has happened yet. Lynn... Lynn's just in a bad mood lately and has been sour with me. "

He wasn't sure if that was an overstatement or understatement, Lynn hasn't spoken to him until earlier but she hadn't actively gone after him either.

"That was a bit more than a 'sour mood' Lincoln, she looked ready to tear your arm off. "

"She wouldn't have." He quickly countered. "She wouldn't dare touch me unless she wants to be kicked off every sports team she's on. "

The two fell back into the game, neither saying anything more about the previous conversation. The song ended in Ronnie's favour, they quickly loaded a second song and began to dance again.

The two continued for a while, for each win they earned they gained a loss the next round. Without knowing it they had gained a small audience of onlookers.

* * *

The hour was late, the sun would set within the hour.

Lori looked back and fourth around, where seven of her nine sisters littered around her (and Leni's) room. Lori herself was situated on the pillow and of her own bed, patiently waiting for the final member to arrive. Leni was sat at her desk, one leg crossed over the other as she helped brush Lola's hair, the six year old pageant queen was resting on her knees just in front of her.

Luan was sprawled across Leni's bed, physically and mentally exhausted from the many birthday parties she had been entertaining at. Lana was sat at the end of Leni's bed, body facing Lori's bed but she seemed to slump in on herself, uncaring towards the movements before her. Lucy was sat at the very end of Lori's bed looking as stoic and still as ever, the prodigy child Lisa sat between the two of them. Lynn herself was situated just next to the door frame, arms crossed and a look of boredom on her face.

Currently they were waiting for the ninth and final sister- Luna -to arrive back so they could start their meeting. The baby of the family - Lily - was already asleep in her crib. Lori couldn't help but feel that there was going to be so much said, yet so little said at the same time.

Each sibling turned towards the door when it opened, the music obsessed girl stepped through and shut the door behind her, a somber look on her face. She gave a small shake of her head as she moved across the room, moved one of Luan's sprawled out arms before seating herself by Leni's pillows.

"Little dudes not coming," the rocker started, a small frown gracing her face. "He's out cold, probably has been for a while. "

Luna had gone to collect Lincoln from his room so he would join them for their sibling meeting, Lori knew that his presence would have been highly appreciated despite the week the lot of them had gone through. Each day was also punctuated with Lincoln demanding people leave his room or his own door slamming shut. Lori was aware that Lincoln was refusing to do anything asked of him, he wasn't helping Leni with her designs or modeling, he wasn't rocking out with the resident rockstar or talking to anyone save from "leave me alone" and "I'm doing homework".

He had a lot of that lately, homework that is. She couldn't help but question why he had so much, she was certainly never given that much, even when she was failing those few times.

Lori picked up her shoe, gently tapping it against her desk to get everyone's attention but also being mindful of the sleeping residents.

"All right, everyone's here let's get this meeting underway."

Each sibling quieted down, turning there attention to the eldest loud. The only person's face Lori couldn't see was Luan, as she was still laying flat on Leni's bed.

"First of all Lincoln won't be joining us tonight, Luna has informed me that he has fallen asleep in his room so he can't participate."

Lori watched each of her siblings for their reactions, Leni and Luna seemed the most upset by the news. Lisa, Lucy and Luan seemed indifferent, although Luan's case was because she couldn't see her face. Lola and Lynn seemed glad that Lincoln wasn't here but worst of all was Lana, the young mechanic didn't seem to react to the news at all. It was as if nothing was ever said in the first place.

"Ok so the first order of business is no doubt on everyone's mind, Lincoln's current behaviour. We all know that Lincoln isn't talking to us or helping us and he's doing his best to stay as far away from us as possible."

" If any body knows anything that could help us understand this please speak up, we can't do anything if we don't know. "

At this point each of the sisters- minus Lana and Luan -were all looking around at each other trying to see who would speak up first.

"If I may have the floor."

Heads turned to the child prodigy , Lisa was stood on the bed, arms folded behind her back as she looked at Lori.

"Granted," she gently tapped her desk with her shoe. " Lisa has the floor. "

The four year old scientist began to pace back and forth on the bed, walking between Lori and Lucy.

"I have been observing our male sibling units behavioral patterns ever since we returned from the beach precisely six days ago. At first I had not noticed his behaviour change, too engrossed in my own scientific studies of course. However when I noticed the change I began to document it and compare it to how he was for the few weeks previous to that, even going through my recorded footage."

From the corner of her peripheral vision Lisa could see Lynn flinch slightly, she ignored it, although she was aware as to why she did. During her reviewing of her recorded footage she saw what Lynn did, saw how she threatened Lincoln with her baseball bat. Secretly she despised the jock, a feeling only boosted by the number of times Lynn had accidentally broken her scientific equipment. She would say nothing about it though, it would make an interesting case study.

"It seemed Lincoln's behaviour change started well before going to the beach, in fact it started long before we exiled him from our abode for two nights."

Lisa may not have shown it but she did care for her family, that second night Lincoln was outside in the rain she herself has crept out to administer a prototype medicine that would prevent him from catching a cold due to his exposed condition to the elements.

"It seemed during the time he was lying about being bad luck, a preposterous notion mind you, he had gotten lonely without us around." Most of them anyway. " When we began to distance him from us he began to feel left out, isolated. However, I believe Lincoln's current behaviour can be attributed to the two days he spent isolated after he was welcomed back inside. "

She passed, taking to quick look around to make sure everyone was still listening, they were.

"It is possible that during this brief period of isolation Lincoln played back the entire incident and has deduced that we are responsible for the ordeal. "

The scientist quickly held up a hand, silencing any protests that may have been spoken.

"I have calculated there to a 76.89% chance that Lincoln will own up for lying to us, however, I doubt he would have planned for what we did." She began to count off her fingers. " removing him from the family's general vicinity, expelling him from partaking in family activities AKA: the movie theater, selling his furniture, boarding up his room, kicking him out of the house. Those are not things Lincoln could have planned for or expected, even I would have been oblivious to such possibilities if I were in Lincoln's predicament. "

She rested a hand to her chin in thought. "Even though I don't believe in Luck or other superstitious nonsense. "

"Take into account each of us is acting like the entire thing didn't even happen and none of us have apologised to him... It's no wonder he's trying to distance himself from us. "

"So." Luna started, looking between each of each of her sisters. "Lincoln hates us because of what happened and because we didn't say sorry? "

"Precisely my musically inclined sibling." Lisa sat down in her original seat, her legs tired from the pacing she had done. " Of course there may be additional factors in play as well, but until I learn of them I can't come up with any other hypotheses. "

"There's nothing to apologise for." Seven of the ten heads turned to Lola, the pink princess had her arms crossed in a display of childish pouting . "He lied to us, just so he could sit on his tushy and not support us from the front row. "

In an instant each of the sisters began to talk over one another, each voicing there opinion on the matter, even Luan who had finally managed to sit up. The noise grew so quickly that it couldn't be contained within the walls of Lori's room, the eldest child tried to bang her shoe like a gavel but to no avail, it simply wasn't loud enough to break over the noise of seven different voices shouting over each other.

The entire group of girls had all moved closer together during there squabbling and Lori feared someone was going to hurt someone else. This was why they needed Lincoln, he would have been able to break this up very quickly, without him she feared they would fall into a stampeding T-rex class sister fight protocol.

Among the clutter of noise a loud yell erupted throughout the room and before anyone could register it Lynn was suddenly tackled to the floor by a small blue, red and yellow blob. All the sisters stopped arguing as they saw Lana tackle Lynn to the floor trying to land hits up her body.

"IT'S YOUR FAULT LYNN! " each word was was punctuated by a small hit to Lynn's chest, despite being six Lana was stronger than she looked thanks to all her mechanical activities. "IF YOU DIDN'T CALL LINCOLN BAD LUCK IN THE FIRST PLACE WE WOULDN'T BE IN THIS SITUATION! "

The 'fight' was immediately stopped when Luna pulled Lana off of Lynn, picking her up in her arms and holding her in a half hug half hold.

"Alright that's enough!" Each of them looked to Lori as she stood between Luna -and Lana- and Lynn, hoping to stop anymore fighting. She spoke a much calmer voice. "That's enough, we've all had a very long week, we all need to go to bed and just sleep off our exhaustion, two things first though. We won't be going to the mall tomorrow as Luan has a double party booked and needs me to chaperone her around with vanzilla."

A chorus of groans echoed around the room, Luan holding up a hand in apology.

"Secondly Luna take Lana to her room after Lynn has gotten to hers, I don't want to have to initiate the sister fight protocol as it will ruin our weekend but if you two don't calm down and apologise to each other or you get worse I will do it, understood." She waited until she received a nod from both of them until she was satisfied.

" good now everyone get out and go to bed. " she watched as everyone left her room, taking note of one blonde who shouldn't have been. "Not you Leni."

" Oops, I totes forgot. "

Luna hung around holding Lana for a few moments extra before finally making there way out. "Come on dudette, time for bed."

Lori laid her head on her own bed, wishing that went better than it did. She quickly raised her shoe and gently banged it on the desk. " Meeting adjourned. "

* * *

**A/N: and that makes off another chapter, i do feel bad about not expanding the sense at Gus' but I wasn't too sure what to do with it, I guess I don't know Rusty, Zach and Ruckus personalities enough. So sorry to anyone who was looking forwards to that scene and was as disappointed as myself.**


	8. Chapter 8

With a groan of satisfaction Lincoln stretched out on his bed, multiple blankets wrapping around his legs as he did so. There was nothing quite like waking up on your own terms after going to sleep exhausted, the way his muscles felt relaxed and worn. The day previous with Ronnie and and his group of friends was the most fun day he could remember, it easily topped every day he had over the summer break.

After he and Ronnie Anne concluded their dance battle at the DDR machine he had gone off and played many different games with Clyde, Zach, Rusty and Rocky. Turns out Rocky was a bit better at games then his older brother but still not as good as he and Clyde.

Cranking his eyes open he looked around his room, being reminded once more of its barren emptiness, even with the small changes he made to the place. Still it was his little piece of solitude, his safe haven that was all for himself.

The best part?

He could lounge in his room all day long without a care in the world, he had no homework, he had no chores, he had nothing important to do. He could do whatever he pleased for the entire day, so long as none of the girls came to him. His eyes darted to his school bag, within was his notebook with all his drawings, he hadn't bothered to return it to its hiding spot in the library. He was far too excited for Gus' yesterday that he had forgotten to return it, sure it was at risk of being found but he was certain that no-one would enter his room because he had been kicking everyone out.

So this weekend was all about he, himself and him. He was going to make sure of it, Lincoln rolled till he was on his side involuntary bringing a large clump of blankets into his arms to hug. He let the heat of the bed comfort him as tiredness began to fade away, the thing about his early mornings was that now his biological clock was set for the early mornings, which meant on Saturdays he was up before everyone else even without his alarm.

He didn't mind, it just meant that he could enjoy the mid-morning without any hassle. In fact he couldn't hear any noise coming from outside his door. This was perfect, he could just lay here and enjoy his morning and ignore all of his problems. His arms hugged the blankets tighter, subconsciously trying to imitate receiving a hug.

Sadly reality is often disappointing. He could feel a familiar pressure build below and knew that he would need to use the bathroom. Slowly he kicked and pulled his way out of the many blankets that had wrapped their way around him, displeased but not surprised.

He quickly noticed he was only wearing his underwear. Right, he was far too tired last night to properly get changed, so he had striped to his underwear. Once he was out of his cocoon of warmth he made for his door, opening it and cringing at the sound the latch made on the door frame, the past few days had caused more damage to be done to the door cause of his own use in slamming it shut. It wouldn't be long before everyone else decided it would be 'best' to remove the door for simplicity.

Ignoring that train of thought he slowly made his way down the hallway, taking note that several doors were left ajar. The doors to both Lana/Lola's room and Luna/Luan's room were left slightly open, no noise could be heard coming from behind them, indicating that they had woken up before him. Did he wake up later then he thought he did? It was possible, then again it was Saturday so they all probably went to the mall. He was half disappointed that no-one had asked him if he wanted to join them but he was also glad that they didn't try to drag him along.

Sure it was hypocritical to think such a thing but that wasn't the point, the point was they didn't ask him if he was interested and therefore were excluding him from joining. Still it was none of his concern as to what they were doing so long as they left him alone.

He quickly entered the bathroom, shut and locked the door before relieving himself. As he was washing his hands he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. The white haired boy he's come to know as himself stared back at him, the same neutral expression he's been holding onto all week long. But as he stared at himself he swore there was something different about the way he looked. He still has his overbite and chipped tooth, same turkey tail, his brown eyes stared back at him with the same look of confusion that he felt. That when he saw it, the bags under his eyes were fading ever so slightly. For as long as he could remember Lincoln always had bags under his eyes, they had become a part of his look, even though none of his ex-sisters seemed to get them, he always thought they were natural.

Was it possible that the bags under his eyes were -in fact- not genetic? Were they tied to something else? He'd have to research it later, just in case. Slowly he made his way out of the bathroom and back into his room, digging through his folded washing he pulled out his orange pajama's before putting them on. He was sure his parents would be a little annoyed if he was walking around in his breifs, well his ex parents anyway, Pop-Pop would have found it amusing.

Turning out of his room he made for the stairs, he needed some grub to starts the day. He took in the silence of his home as he descended the stairs, he made no effort to stop the stairs from creaking or to hide his presence should someone be home.

To his suspicious -and surprise- he could hear something coming from downstairs.

"Is that... Humming?" He spoke in a whisper unless he would be accused of spying. Taking care to be as quiet as possible he stepped down the last few steps, looking towards the living room -where he thought the noise was coming from- he saw Luna sat on the couch, back to the armrest and legs laid flat against the cushions. She had on her purple headphones as she hummed along to whatever tune she was listening to.

Lincoln decided it wasn't worth any extra attention and shoved the curiosity away, it was highly possible that Luna simply didn't want to go to the mall with everyone else. He rounded the corner, pushing his way to the kitchen.

Scanning through the cupboards he came upon the cereals, immediately grimacing at the Aw Nuts cereal. His taste for that cereal had been tainted by the whole bad luck ordeal, it only reminded him of the entire thing... In addition to everything else that happened as well.

Reaching past it he pulled out the sugar snaps, intent on having a more flavorful breakfast. Pulling out a bowl and spoon he poured in the cereal before making off for the milk.

As he slowly began to eat his cereal he couldn't help but feel... Anxious, there was something going on. Something was wrong and he wasn't sure as to what that was. Why couldn't he just put the silence of the house behind him and enjoy it? Why did his gut have to be so upset over something? It's not like something happened, he only saw Luna in the living room.

His spoon clanked against the bowl loudly as realisation dawned on his young mind.

Luna was in the living room, on her own, listening to her music, with the TV off. Living in a house with twelve other people meant that there was _always_ someone watching it or two or more people arguing over it. The only time he could remember people being in the living room with the TV off was when it was family game night -which were rare- or...

When the sister fight protocol was in effect.

Abandoning his cereal at the kitchen side he made a hasty B-Line for the living room. As much as he didn't want to talk to anyone he knew it would be stupid to keep himself in the dark on the ongoing's of the house, if there was a sister fight protocol in effect he had to know and he had to know NOW.

He was not going to find out last minute and be kicked out of his own room for an entire day or be banned from the kitchen or bathroom. Sure he just used both but that didn't mean they would remain available throughout the day.

Stepping into the living room he noticed that Luna hasn't moved from her spot on the couch. That feeling of betrayal crept up into his stomach as he looked at Luna, knowing that she also helped with his little exile really dealt a massive blow to him, more so than anything Lynn did to him. Lynn was known for being a sore loser and going over the top, Luna was supposed to be relaxed and calm and chill. So knowing Luna agreed with him being kicked out hurt a lot more as the two of them were supposed to have a special bond, more so than anyone else did have with him.

He had to swallow his pride however, as he needed answers and he needed them now.

Tapping Luna on the shoulder he watched as she took off her headphones and spun her head towards him, he made sure to keep his face as neutral as possible.

"Sup lil' bro?" Luna gave a heartfelt smile at him, something he wasn't too keen on receiving right now.

" Hey Luna, " his voice was passive but not submissive. "Can I ask you something?"

" Sure little dude. " Luna pulled herself up from the spot on the couch, turning her body so she sat right on the end of the sofa and was able to face Lincoln without straining her neck. "What you wanna ask?"

Lincoln hesitated for a moment, he knew the general rule around the sister fight protocol was that he would butt out of it but he needed to know if it was happening.

"I... Is the sister fight protocol in affect."

There was a moment of tense silence, he watched as Luna's face contorted to curiosity to confusion.

"No it's not." Luna raised an eyebrow, curiosity and concern warping through her. " Why do you ask bro? "

The snow haired child really wished she would stop calling him 'bro', for as long as they weren't his sisters he wasn't their brother. He bit his tongue on the matter and focused on the conversation at hand.

"It's just... Quiet, too quiet. That and you're sitting in here with the TV off, none of us do that." Her paused, realising what He said wasn't enough he continued. "It's also... Tense, I can feel it in the air. It's like we're all sitting on a powder keg or one of Lisa's unstable experiments."

Luna nodded in understanding, a small frown etched into her face.

"I'm not gonna lie little dude, things got physical last night at the end of the last sibling meeting."

Physical? Did she mean people started shoving and pushing or a full blown fight? He must of had a confused look on his face as Luna decided to elaborate.

"Lana and Lynn got into a bit of scuffle, Lana landed a lot of hits up her body but i don't think she did any real damage."

" I think Lynn was too shocked at being tackled down that she didn't fight back. "

"So no, the protocol isn't in affect dude, think of this as more like..." Luna paused taping her finger to her chin as she thought of how to describe the situation. "Like a pre-sister fight protocol, cooling off phase."

" So a sister fight might still happen? " It was still possible, Lynn was known for holding grudges and he wouldn't put it past her to hold onto this for a long time. He had experienced the twins strength first hand a number of times and while he couldn't say which of the two were stronger he was definitely leaning towards Lana in that regard.

"Its possible but most of us are separated today, so everyone should calm down by the time everyones home."

Just the idea that there could be a sister fight was enough to rip the last ebb's of happiness out of him. He remembered very clearly what happened last time and he didn't want a repeat of it, the last time the protocol was used it had affected him more then they realised or knew about.

"So where is everyone?" Luna had just said they were out, but she hadn't specified who or where, as trivial as it was it was good to know who was in the house with him.

" Oh, Lori's chaperoning Luan around today as she has a double party booking, Lola, Lily and Mom have all gone to get some makeup as they're running out. " Luna paused, raking her brain for more information. "Lynn's off at some sports practice, can't remember what one, Leni... I think she went to the mall with some of her friends."

" That leaves me, you, Lana, Lisa and Lucy home, oh and dads off at work, almost forgot about him. "

Deciding he knew enough he began to make for the stairs, he had to ensure that no-one was going to use his room should they enact the SFP. He could tell today was going to go horribly.

"Oh, Lincoln. " He paused, foot resting on the bottom step, turning back to Luna he saw she was leaning ever so slightly over the couch to see him. "I want to say I'm sorry, for the way we... I treated you, you know... Back _then._ And... I should have used my head more, thought about what we were doing... But I didn't, and I'm sorry. "

Well, that was a first, he wasn't expecting Luna to be the first to apologise but then again he didn't think she would be the last.

"Apology accepted." He turned and climbed the stairs rapidly, intent on spending the rest of the day in his room where no-one else could. Halfway up he stopped, his previous bravado coming back in full force. "Luna! Just so you know, my room is off limits to everyone unless I say otherwise. "

Like that he continued up the stairs, but had he looked back, looked down to Luna, he would have seen her crestfallen face.

* * *

Mud. Was there anything better than mud?

If you asked Lana loud this question, then she would be able to answer that there was, in fact, nothing better than mud. However, even she would say there was plenty of things that were just as good as mud. Like fixing engines and changing tires, unblocking toilets and fixing boilers.

But the thing that came closest to mud, worms. Like the very worms she had been picking from the mud in their garden.

Her bare feet squelched in the slippery mud as she walked back and forth in pursuit of the small earth coloured insect. She could hear their pet dog Charles yap away as he ran in and out of the many mud puddles she had deliberately made.

Since it didn't rain last night there wasn't a single mud puddle for her to enjoy her weekend in, but that was a problem easily solved with the use of the garden hose. And so started a mud filled day of fun.

Lana would admit that she felt... Better today then she had been, not great or good but better. Her sleep last night had gone uninterrupted and while she couldn't remember what she dreamed about, she didn't wake up with dried tears on her face which was a nice change for once.

Perhaps the little beat down she gave Lynn was what raised her mood or maybe it was the undisturbed sleep she got. She didn't care which it was but she knew she felt better having smacked Lynn around a little, she was certain she hadn't hurt the jock that much as she seemed fine that morning. Lynn had been harassing her on the down low ever since she was forced to board up Lincoln's room, the athlete had tried to get her to damage the wiring on Linc's room, cause a water pressure failure when he was showering and more. Perhaps now she would back off a little.

Her attention was stolen by a small cluster of worms that had been dragged up from the mud by the water she had used to soften the soil. Bending down she grabbed fist fills of mud and worms, watching and feeling them wiggle there way in her hands and through her fingers. It felt great.

Slowly she trudged her way over to her bucket and dumped off the worms within where they joined up with dozens of other worms she had been collecting throughout the day. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with them, eat them maybe or she could feed them to some of her reptiles, oh or she could do both of those things.

She turned, ready to continue scrounging around in the dirt for more of the slippery critters.

She hardly made it five steps in the ankle high mud before Charles whipped past in front of her, making her trip over her own two feet landing face first in the sloppy earth. Pushing her arms down she pushed herself out of the mud, her entire front was now covered in mud and dirt and so was her face.

She shook her head much like a dog would to throw off as much mud as possible, she raised her mud covered hand up to wipe off the mess that covered her eyes. She squinted at Charles' retreating form and she could just imagine the dog running off laughing at her.

With fierce determination she took off for the family pet, ready to get her own back at him. Deep down she knew her mother would make her have a bath to rinse all the mud off of her but for now she would pretend that such a thing wouldn't happen.

"Come here Charles, I'll get you for that. "

Lana twisted and turned out of the way of the many obstacles that were in her way as she chased after the family dog, several times she would slip and fall into another of her mud puddles, coating herself in another layer of filth and grim. Several times she managed to grab charles and when she did she would drop him right into the closest mud puddle, getting the dog just as dirty as herself.

As the two of them continued to play Lana didn't notice that they were getting closer and closer to the corner of the House. Soon the duo had gone around the corner and onto the tarmac, passing by abandoned toys and sports equipment. Leaving muddy footprints in her wake.

As they neared the front of the house Lana's foot caught on a loose skipping rope, tripping up for the second time that hour. He hands shot forwards to catch herself before she faceplanted the floor and lost more teeth, looking up she could only just see Charles' retreating form round the corner to the front of the house.

"Dang it."

She knew from experience that Charles wouldn't run away from the house, he knew this was the only place that would feed him. As she stood up Lana wiped her hands together, feeling mud and stones roll of the palms of her hands. They were probably grazed and would sting later but she knew her hands would be fine, she usual shrugs off small cuts and minor burns quite easily. It wasn't easy being the only handywoman in the house.

Now she had the daunting task to get the family dog and hose him -and herself- down so they could enter the house without getting in trouble. If she had time she would continue to play in the mud then hose herself down, hopefully it would be enough to fool her mother into not giving her a bath.

Slowly she trudged her way to the front of the house, even from here she could see Charles running back and forth around the front yard. At least someone was perfectly happy.

As she slowly walked forwards her eyes caught slight of a collection of colours, she stopped to admire the collection of hand prints that were placed there several months ago. She remembered that day quite clearly, her parents had gone off on their wedding anniversary and they had come up with the _perfect_ idea to repaint the house for them.

Of course everyone had painted their favourite colour along a different part of the house leaving it an ungodly mess of a failed rainbow. Their parents had made them repaint the house white again. Then Lily had gone and left a lavender hand print right here, then everyone else had left their own hand print in their favourite colour around Lily's. She had never seen her father cry more then that day as he admired the family memento they had made.

She hasn't realised a small smile had crept onto her face as she looked at the hand prints. Slowly her smile faltered as she looked at the wall, she couldn't help but feel like something was wrong. Out of curiosity she counted the coloured hands, there were ten.

She paused, then recounted the hands.

Ten. Again.

Here eyes scanned over the colours, trying to find which one was missing. There was Lucy's black hand, Lily's lavender, Luan's yellow, Lynn's red, Luna's purple, Lola's pink, her own blue hand, Lori's light blue, Leni's pale green and Lisa's green hand.

One was missing.

The orange hand, Lincoln's hand print.

She moved forwards, putting her hand to the wall where his print used to be feeling over the surface to see if it was some kind of trick to the eye. She could feel semi fresh paint over the spot where Lincoln's hand print used to be, now that she was closer she could see how bumpy that area was.

Someone had to have painted over the it but who. Lynn wouldn't do something so petty, Luan's pranks were the 'in your face' kind and not something this minor. She couldn't think of anyone else who would do this, so did that mean Lincoln did it.

Why?

Whatever good mood she had vanished as she felt tears begin to fall from her eyes, she wanted to know why but she feared if she knew the answer it would hurt her more than help her.

* * *

Lisa scanned over her computer screen, eyes darting back and forth over every piece of data she currently had. Trying her hardest to place it and complete her calculations but there was so much she didn't know. Too many unknown variables to even discover what those were.

For the past six days Lincoln's behaviour had left her curious and befuddled. If this was him simply being angry about the bad luck ordeal then he would have confronted someone by now, maybe even dropped the subject completely once he became apathetic towards the situation.

But that didn't happen and it wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Sometimes her superior intellect was as much of a curse as it was a blessing, she could see and calculate the distance between two object in seconds without any measurements, she could identify the difference between two breeds of ants with a small glance but for the life of her she couldn't make out her own brothers intentions or emotional state.

There were factors at play that she didn't have any knowledge of, something else was driving their brother to be the way he was, something else drove him to commit to his actions.

through her observant nature and use of cameras she had seen the changes Lincoln had made throughout the house, removing his pictures, trashing his trophy and completely distancing himself from everyone as much as he could.

She would have brought these details to everybody else's attention had Lana not gotten involved in a fight with Lynn. She would admit that there was a good deal of satisfaction in seeing the family athlete being taken down by a six year old.

Then again, Lana was able to easily hog tie Lincoln without him being able to put up a fight and he and Lynn were roughly the same height. So it shouldn't have been such a big surprise to her, she had done plenty of calculations on everyone's strength.

Switching her monitors screen over to her cameras live feed she peered into Lincoln's room through the safety of her cameras.

There he sat on the air mattress, clad in nothing but his red victory undies, as he had so affectionately named them. Even through the screen she could see his noise-be-gone ear buds placed in his ears as he read another of his ace savvy comics.

Personally she never quite understood the appeal of brightly colored adults in spandex suits who all claimed to be heros. That and the ace savvy franchise was highly predictable,it starts, they fight, ace savvy wins.

She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose as she squinted at Lincoln's form, using her mouse to zoom in slightly on him she took notice on how he seemed to be subconsciously displaying signs of stress, raised shoulders and clenched jaw. His face looked to be the very definition of calm but his body spoke otherwise.

She wanted, no needed to know how everything fit together. The removal of photos and distancing could be seen as him no longer recognising himself as part of The family, his discarding of his trophy however, she wasn't sure what that could mean.

The trophy itself was rather lackluster, being nothing more than a booby prize for him after he horribly embarrassed himself during his schools video contest. He probably hated it as he only earned it after fixing a mistake he made, if he hadn't made that mistake then he wouldn't have earned the trophy.

Perhaps secretly he felt overshadowed by all of them, being surrounded by nine talented/ skilled people probably wasn't good for you when you were average at everything and had no defining skill. Still she could not discredit her brothers intelligence, he was the smartest loud right after herself, needing very little to no tutoring. The one time he did was because he was being distracted by Mrs. DIMartino and not from a lack of intelligence.

Unlike some of her sisters.

She was getting off track. She reverted the cameras zoom back to its default setting before taking another look around Lincoln's room. There plain empty wall of the linen closet stared at her through the camera, gone was the posters and wall mounted items he usual kept up. The room itself no longer gave off that feeling of being welcome, now it looked cold and uninviting.

Why hadn't her parental units replaced all of Lincoln's sold furniture? They certainly had the funds to do so, she knew cause she was the one paying the bills. They were done with trying to teach him a lesson on lying, a very poor method if you asked her.

She held no illusions on herself, she knew she helped create the plan on Lincoln's punishment but she never wanted it to progress to kicking him out, that was more on her parents and Lynn, maybe even Luan too.

The very least she could do was try to managed the family budget so that Lincoln could have his room be refurbished and redecorated. Especially if their parental unit weren't going to do it themselves, she didn't see why they wouldn't but they most certainly had taken a long time in doing so and they showed no signs in actually doing it in the first place.

Perhaps that too was worth investigating, it certainly was more interesting then her previous experiments on sea water pollution levels.

Still she was certain that there were a lot of variables that she thought she was missing. Perhaps she needed to look deeper, or further back and find anything that could be the cause of Lincoln's current behaviour.

She hoped to be able to solve this mystery so that all of them could sort this entire situation out, cause as it stood there was a very high chance that they could lose their relationship with their only brother.

* * *

**A/N: and that wraps up another chapter, honestly I'm running out of things to say in these little notes.**

**If course of you do see any mistakes do let me know and I'll get around to them when I can. Do keep in mind the last thousand words were written whilst I was extremely tired so it's possible there are more mistakes than **

**Edit: I've gone through and fixed multiple mistakes with both spelling and grammar so this chapter is a bit more bearable to read.**

**chapter nine is taking much longer than I want it to as I'm having trouble so please be patient with me.**


	9. Chapter 9

The afternoon had come faster than everyone expected it to.

When the sisters had returned from their activities - or in Lori's case, task -they all had asked Luna how Lana was doing and if she was calm enough for them to call off any use of the sister fight protocol.

Admittedly Lana was calm enough, subdued even, some would say but the same could not be said for Lynn. The family athlete was still worked up slightly after she came home. According to Lucy she hadn't been as focused during her practice and it had kept her infuriated during the entire day, or at least that was what she was muttering to herself.

The sisters had figured that Lynn would have exhausted herself during her sports activities but now they were going to have to deal with Lynn's temper until it died down on its own.

When dinner rolled around Lynn and Lana were separated as far away from each other as possible without being able to see each other without trying.

Like every other day for the past week Lincoln didn't join them for dinner, this time Leni had taken his dinner to him- and like everyone else who tried -even she couldn't coax him to come down to eat with the family.

Everyone else Slowly dug into their succotash, being reminded how their father always cooked the same meals every day of every week. The roast beef they had Monday was simply because their father had been challenged by one of his co-workers to see who could make it the best. Suffice to say their father won by a landslide.

During the entire day Lisa had kept tabs on each family member, especially her parents. She was still no closer to finding out the cause to their brothers seemingly endless anger towards all of them and with what little data she had she could at least understand why he was doing what he did.

Now though, the young scientist was busy at her desk, going over all of her notes. She had spent a good portion of the day combing through the video footage again, trying to find the cause of Lincoln's prolonged -yet justified - anger. So far nothing stuck out besides when they blew off his apology and admitting he had lied about his luck, that was definitely a factor in all of this but maybe not as large of one as it could be.

If the whole situation was because they didn't believe him when he told the truth then he would have blown up at them, complained or even made everything obvious but no, he kept to himself, stayed quiet and ignored everyone else.

This implies that he was attempting to disassociate himself with everyone else. The removal of all pictures and items that connected him with them supported that theory.

Lisa sighed as she brought a hand into her face to rub her eyes from under her glasses. This was proving far more difficult than she had expected it to be, if only it could be simpler.

"Odd, when presented something simple I request a bigger challenge. Yet when presented a challenge I desire it to be easier."

The irony was not lost on her but truthfully she wished to be able to solve this issue with the same ease as one of her collage grade mathematical formulas. She just wanted to get to the bottom of her sole brothers reasoning -hopefully- fixing it along the way.

The sounds of a baby's babbling drew her attention away from her notes as she looked behind her. Her only younger sister was sat in the centre of the room, playing with a small collection of her toys. Most notably being the small cubic and tetrahedron blocks that she was trying to stack up on top of one another.

Despite renouncing nearly all her inane emotions even she had to admit that Lily's attempts were rather cute as she sat there in her diaper. At least someone was able to continue without any worries, Lily herself had been excluded from Lincoln's plan and it wasn't an oversight or mistake. He had been allowing Lily to come to him whenever she wished and he wasn't intent on stopping her.

That was an easily solved riddle in itself, Lily was a baby and therefore was not responsible for anything that has happened. She saw them do stuff, copied them and then learnt from them. So what kind of lesson were they teaching her when they punished Lincoln? That it was okay to treat your siblings, or any male, with a lack of respect. She was too young to grasp the concept of lying or even good and bad behaviours.

Lisa realised that Lily was going to grow up with nine sisters to look up to, nine different sources of feminine knowledge to learn from, what would Lily do if she saw all of her sisters looking down on Lincoln every single day? She would see that as normal.

In the same way all of them saw Ronnie Anne's bullying of Lincoln as a sign of affection.

She would grow up to treat all boys like that and... Well it would lead to a lot of trouble.

"Well my infantile female sibling, it's seems all of us are becoming a bad influence on you, if we don't sort ourselves out quickly."

Lisa watched as Lily turned to her, a cubic block in each hand. The infant turned her head to the side much like a dog would when confused before she began babbling and clashing the blocks together. Unlike most of their siblings she could at least understand Lily in her basic form of speech, just like Lincoln and Luan could.

"Indeed, we have made one big mess my younger sibling, just how big a mess is the question."

The scientist mulled her thoughts around for a moment, still trying to find the roots of Lincoln's frustration and negative emotions. Her eyes darted back to Lily, the baby had been spending a little more time with Lincoln then usually lately and it was a well known fact that Lincoln would sometimes pretend to speak to someone as a way of venting his frustration without annoying someone else and although she hadn't caught any of it on video perhaps he had vented to lily at one point.

"Lily." At the mention of her name the baby turned to her immediate older sister giving off a little coo towards her. "Would it be possible that Lincoln has said anything to you about... How he feels? "

Lily gave off a few incoherent babbles as she waved her arms around, accidentally knocking over her small tower in the process.

"I figured he wouldn't have, didn't hurt to try to ask though." The prodigal child turned back to her notes and computer screen once more trying to find an answer to the situation. " Perhaps I should put a few more microphones in his room, or attach some listening bugs to his clothes then I'd be able to hear what he says all the time. "

As she was thinking of which clothes would be best to use for a bug - of which she was choosing his shoes - she felt a hard object hit the back of her head. She whipped around, finding the kinetic energy assisted object to be one of Lily's cubic wooden blocks, Street name: building blocks.

She raised a hand to cover the throbbing area on her head, feeling a slight hint of pain rush through her skull. "Did you just... Throw that at me?"

"Sa Sa pffft." Lisa blinked as her only younger sister blew a raspberry at her, there was definitely something she was missing now.

" And why would you do that to me? "

She watched as Lily waved her arms around as she babbled on, Slowly Lisa began to piece together what her only younger sister was saying and it dawned on her that Lily was far more perspective than she appeared to be and far more so than other kids her age.

"So your saying that Lincoln is the way his is because he's finally had enough of us? That we've pushed him so far that he's taking these drastic measures because he feels he has to and that the whole bad luck conspiracy was just the final straw?"

Lily giggled as she clapped at her immediate older sister before returning to her building blocks .

Lisa hopped off the chair she was standing on, pacing the room as she mulled this new information. "Hmm, that makes sense. It can't be easy being the only male sibling in the house, just like it's hard being the only smart one. But if all of this is true then everyone's past actions must also be brought into the light to be evaluated but who's to say what has and hasn't annoyed him, other then Lincoln himself. "

Then it dawned on her, in order to get to the bottom of this problem they would need Lincoln to be co-operative with them, at least then they could start to fix things with him. But how? He wasn't going to talk to anyone until the problems were resolved.

She couldn't fix everyone's problems.

She stopped walking, feet inches from Lily's new block tower.

"I can't fix Lincoln's problems with everyone but I can fix his problems with me, if I go through all my video data I should be able to pinpoint a magnitude of times in which I have caused our elder brother grievances. Of course!" Her hands cupped her face, almost pushing her glasses off her face.

" That's what he wants, for us to realise what we are doing to him and have always been doing to him not to focus on the most recent thing, I need to get to my computer, I need to go through those recordings. "

* * *

Saturday had turned out far more stressful then Lincoln had planned on it ever being, with the possibility of a sister fight protocol erupting at any moment he had kept himself contained in his room. Every half hour or so he would peak out his room to get a grasp on the situation beyond 'Lincoln Land', sometimes he'd catch someone else in the hallway but so far he'd been ignoring them after assessing if it was safe to exit his room or not.

So far it hadn't escalated up from the so called 'pre-sister fight cool off phase', it wasn't a real part of the protocol, it was just how Luna described it to him. Still it didn't stop him from worrying about it all the while, it was still highly possible that someone would try to take over his room for the sake of the 'peace'. He didn't see why they _had_ to use his room there were five other bedrooms on this floors and if the issue was between two sisters who didn't share a room then both should have been contained to their own rooms and not over in his.

On top of which both the attic and basements existed for a reason other than storage and washing. It wasn't like they used those rooms for anything else so why not use them to separate people?

Lincoln sighed as he rolled into his stomach, his ace savvy comic crinkling in his hands as he did so. The faint moonlight faded in through the window as he kept reading, night had descended onto royal woods and every other member of the loud house had gone to sleep.

Yet despite the hour there was still a chance that it could happen.

He frowned as his head collapsed onto his comic, uncaring towards any damage he caused to it. This whole situation had put him on edge and left him worse then before he had blown off steam at Gus', so that meant all his hard work was for nothing... Again.

Even when he wasn't involving himself with them they were still ruining everything for him.

His hopes for a relaxing weekend were practically ripped from his hands and torn to shreds in front of him and now he was spending every waking moment waiting for the bomb between them to explode. It just wasn't fair.

He could feel his right hand twitch, he knew that twitch as well as he knew himself. He had the urge to draw some more.

Well, he wasn't going to get much sleep tonight and he might as well do something to occupy his mind. Pulling himself up from his prone spot on the mattress he reached out for his backpack. Finally pulling out his notepad after fumbling with the zip. He was still overly cautious with his family finding this but it should be safe to use now, flipping over to the last page he looked at his most recently finished drawing.

It was the drawing he had been working on every morning for the past week, at some point he had actually finished it. He wasn't sure when, time always blurred together when he started drawing but that didn't surprise him, many of the girls claimed they lost track of time when doing things - mostly their favourite activities or talents.

The drawing itself was very... Fitting, he supposed. It was a drawing of the upper floor, the background contained the doors to Luna/Luan, Lynn/Lucy and Lana/Lola's rooms while the foreground was lacking in details making it look as though the other half of the house was missing. Within the hallway all of his sisters were crowding around Lynn as she showed off another trophy, each of the sisters themselves where even holding medals or a trophy to share in the glory. He could just faintly see the words on said items and each correlated to each girls skill - minus Lily who had a medal for sucking her thumb - his eyes darted to the right side of the page where his room was drawn, barren and blank, just like before he had furnished it. He could see himself sat up against the closed door hugging his knees.

It pained him to look at this drawing, it was just a stark reminder that he wasn't as good as his sisters. He would never be that good, plain boring talentless Lincoln Loud. The boy who would always stay in his sisters shadows.

Carefully he tore the page out of his book, trying not to damage the binding so all the other pages wouldn't fall out. Once the page was free he crumpled it up and threw it to the other side of the room, not bothering to see where it went.

Flipping back to the plain page he scooped out his pencils before setting everything onto the ottoman table and started to work, he wasn't sure what he'd draw this time, he just hoped it would be better then the last one and not as deary and dark.

His thoughts escaped him as his hand slaved away to the wills of the pencil. Not once did he stop to think about what he was drawing, just that it was what he needed to do.

Still though, the image of his last drawing lingered and it's message gnawed away at his heart, his sisters had their talents. They'd go on and achieve great things for themselves; pageant queen, scientist, fashion designer, comedian and everything else... He'd be stuck with a regular job, being to one they would forget about, if they even cared to remember anything about him anyway.

He knew he stuck out from them, being the only boy did that but it went deeper then that, he was the only one to inherit Pop-Pop's white hair, he was the only one to have a weird taste - like peanut and sauerkraut sandwiches - ignoring Lana's trash eating of course, he was the only one interested in comics - they read magazines not comics - and he was the only one without a talent, ignoring Lily but she would find hers eventually.

In fact, it was highly possible that he didn't have one. All of his sister had found their talents before the age of ten and although Luna had jumped into the rock and roll train at ten she had an interest in music from well before then. In regards to the Louds, if you didn't have a talent by ten then you didn't have one, simple.

The thought was depressing on its own but Lincoln ignored it as he kept drawing away.

* * *

Sunday came around with an air of caution.

Lynn was showing no signs of cooling off and forgetting about the entire fight that has transpired Friday. However, she wasn't showing any intentions that she was going to do something that would enact the sister fight protocol.

This was one of the small satisfaction the two parents of the loud house allowed themselves to enjoy, sure the sister fight protocol wasn't used often but when it was, productivity was shot down the drain for the sake of the peace.

Currently the two parents were sat in their shared room, getting ready for the day ahead of them. Hopefully what little peace there was would remain until everyone blew off steam.

At least today the parents knew most of the girls would be out for at least half the day, Lynn included. But there thoughts were not fixed onto their ten daughters but their sole son, Lincoln.

"I don't know honey." The patriarch of the family spoke to his wife as he looked at himself in the mirror, his hand tapping the top of his balding head as he tried to see if he had lost more hair.

"Lincoln's been rather distant lately, staying in his room, not talking to anyone, he hasn't even been joining us for dinner."

Rita, the matriarch of the family, sat on the end of their shared bed slowly brushing her hair.

"I know sweetie, but we agreed to give Lincoln some time to cool off, it's not easy to just go back to normal after all that happened."

Lynn Sr. Sighed as he slumped his shoulders down, his face falling as he did so. " I know. " he shook his head at his own reflection before moving over to the bed and sitting down next to his wife.

"It's just... I think we went way too far with what we did and now Lincoln isn't talking to us, at first I thought he was upset at us earlier in the week but now I can't help but feel like he hates us."

Rita stopped brushing her hair as her husband's words set in. Yes Lincoln had kept as far away from everyone as possible and anytime she herself saw him he gave off an aura of... Hostility. It certainly wasn't healthy for him to hold his emotions in, he was usually such an expressive child. Never having problems with showing his emotions around everyone.

"I know what you mean Lynn, I can't help but feel like a wedge is being put between us and him. Maybe it's time we stop being so lenient with him, it's time he got himself involved with the family again, that way he can put everything behind him and we can all move on."

Lynn nodded as he thought about it. "Yeah, we can't have him staying separated from everyone forever and I'm sure the girls are annoyed with taking his food up to him every night, not to mention that he leaves early in the morning and doesn't come home until late some days. "

He could still remember the first time Lincoln left early, that morning was one of the most hectic ones he ever had. He hasn't had to deal with the morning rush in such a long time that he forgot how much work it really was. Normally Lori and Lincoln would deal with everyone while he cooked breakfast, from his experience by the time everyone was downstairs they were pretty much ready to go save for the younger ones packed lunches, which he always did. The rest of the week proved more stressful for the eldest daughter as both he and his wife had to leave early in the morning for work.

"Which is why he will have to join us at the dinner table from now on, let's at least start there. That way he and the girls can at least talk. " Rita punctuated her words with a gentle tap to her husband's knee before she stood and made her way to the mirror. Picking up several beauty products from the counter top she began to touch up her make up.

"Especially since he got that talking too after we let him in, he knows what he did was wrong." Lynn nodded to that, carefully adjusting his bath robe so it stayed on.

"I know, hopefully we won't have to deal with any lie like that one again. Small white lies I can understand but not petty selfish lies. "

"As for him going out..." She paused as she started to put on eyeliner. "I checked with the school and they have proved that is where he's going every morning and he's been coming home before curfew everyday. We can't really disapprove of him wanting to go to school early now can we, it just means he's taking his education seriously. "

"Yeah I know." He stood from his bed before making his way over to their closest, intent on getting in some clothes and out of his bath robe. "I still don't like him leaving early though and he's blocked our numbers on his phone, what if something happens to him and we can't even find him?"

" Well, I'll see if I can ask Lisa to unblock us without him knowing. " she paused, eyeing her growing eyebrows. "Although if he does get into an emergency he could just unblock us himself to call us."

Lynn grunted as he pulled up his pants. " That's... Not... my... Point sweetheart. My point is we can't contact him to make sure he's ok when something happens and he doesn't come home on time or if we get another tornado run through royal woods or... If anything happens really. "

"You make a good point, I'll still ask Lisa if there's anything she can do to help but other then that we can't do much without disrespecting his privacy. " Rita looked at herself in the mirror before deciding she looked presentable. "Still, I don't like how he spends all his time home in his room, a boy his age needs to get outside and play games, do some sports, be active. The last thing he needs is getting out of shape just because he's angry. "

"You noticed that too? If he keeps this up he'll put on quite a bit of weight very quickly. We can't have him getting unhealthy, that's how aunt Ruth got the way she is. I really don't want anyone living like that."

Lynn blinked, quickly replaying what he just said in his head. "That wasn't harsh was it? What I just said."

Humming to herself Rita looked at her husband through the mirror, seeing his slightly nervous expression. "Perhaps you could have said it... Nicer, but I know what you mean. I'll look into some things after we get back from shopping."

They both frowned as they remembered that their entire family was banned from the closest grocery store. They were still shopping at the one the next town over, luckily they were close to earning their way back into the one they were banned from but both parents knew they wouldn't be in this situation of it wasn't for... Lincoln.

The boy had tried to help, to give her a day off in exchange for some cereal he wanted. It seemed fair - if Lincoln could bring the price down low enough to buy them of course - and she knew Lincoln was highly responsible for a boy his age and with his sisters helping him out there shouldn't have been any problems at all but, somehow, they were banned.

"Right, well I'll get the shopping bags and warm vanzilla up."

"Lynn sweetie." She watched as he turned back to face her. "Your jumper."

He looked down at himself, realising that he had - in fact - not put on his green jumper.

"Oops."

* * *

Today had been exhausting. Not physically but mentally. Lori had been physically drained yesterday when she had to chaperone Luan to her two birthday parties and help her move her equipment and for one of the two parties she needed to be an actual assistant on stage for a while as Luan changed costumes for her act.

What was draining was how most of her siblings had - like every other day - constantly asked for her help while she was still reeling from the mental exhaustion from the day before. One amplified the other and pretty quickly she lost the will to get anything done, despite it being chore day.

She had seen Lincoln walking around collecting the trash but he wasn't interested in trying to talk to anyone, in fact he looked as physically drained as she was mentally. That in itself said a lot, as she felt as though she could sleep for a whole week longer.

In her - less then active - state, she realized that she had been a little too harsh on Lincoln those first few days and when she was picking everyone up from outside the school on friday. She wasn't sure what Lynn and Lincoln spoke about that day but it certainly wasn't something the athlete liked.

Of course she did think about as to why she had been so harsh on Lincoln, perhaps it came down to her understanding of the situation. How she knew if other people learned of what they did all of them would be separated by CPS, however, she calmed herself from going down that train of thought.

Lincoln was a planner, that was why they called him the man with the plan, if he wanted to get any form of legal authority involved in this entire thing then he was - or at least she hoped he was - aware that doing so would rip their family apart. That was the last thing any of them needed or wanted and she was sure Lincoln was in that boat as well.

She certainly couldn't imagine what it would be like to not live with everyone under the same roof. As much as the noise sometimes drove her crazy, she knew she wouldn't be able to live without it for long. Truthfully one of her greatest fears was her family being torn apart, she wouldn't be able to cope if she couldn't see everybody at the drop of a hat.

She had to stop being so mean to Lincoln, it was why she backed off after Wednesday, subconsciously she had come to that decision, even if she told herself it was because of other reasons. She was just... Scared.

Scared of losing everyone but mostly Lincoln, he was her only brother after all. Even though no-one would admit it in front of each other he did hold a special place in their hearts for him as the best brother one could ever ask for.

And they had treated him like he was worth less then the dirt on their shoes. It hit her, right then and there, how badly they had messed up. How they had gone too far with everything. She should have been a part of the planning, she should have oversaw everything and made sure they wouldn't do something so stupid and irresponsible.

Who was she kidding? She left Luan completely unsupervised while she planned out what was basically an April fools day grade prank. On their brother no less, how could she claim to be a good older sister if she allowed such things to happen?

She couldn't, it was as simple as that

* * *

**A/N: Ughhh. That took forever and then some to write up.**

**firstly I'd like to say sorry for the long wait for this chapter, I've had a lot of IRL stuff keeping me occupied for a while. On top of which when I was writing this chapter I actually rewrote it three times, at first unwanted this chapter to be the first forgiveness but then I changed it to have the second half of Saturday pay out then have the first half of the forgiveness start and have it continue in the next chapter. Then I changed it to this so in can prolong the story a little bit more and being the parents back in as that haven't really been in the story properly yet.**

**I was also watching all of the loud house episodes and in can gladly say I have watched every episode that has been released, I didn't want to keep writing without watching them in case I made a mistake with there characters.**

**That's all for now, thank you for being patient with me.**

**Again tell me if you spot mistakes, I tend to stay up late finishing these off so I wouldn't be surprised if there is one.**


	10. Chapter 10

If there was one thing Lincoln wanted to do, it was completely forget about the weekend he had just endured.

It had started out great, for about twenty minutes. Then he learned there may be the possibility of a sister fight protocol and that ruined his entire mood that he had worked so hard in earning.

Now though, as he walked down the path towards his school, he tried to bleed off the remaining stress as he took in gulps of fresh morning air.

Now this was where Lincoln's plan becomes... Repetitive. It wasn't a flaw or anything but this part didn't need refining for his plan to work. He just needed to live each day out as he normally would whilst completely overworking himself or being very busy each day. This meant he wouldn't have to deal with the girls unless he wanted to... Unlike last night.

That didn't mean doing tons of school work, as he could always hang out with his friends or be on his own around royal woods. He just had to be busy doing his own thing.

Apparently his so called parents had been _lenient_ with him when they let him do as he wished for the past week. As of last night he was told that he _had_ to eat at the table with everyone else and couldn't expect everyone else to bring his meals to him.

He never expected or asked, they brought him his meals on their own, they assumed he didn't want to join them. They were right but he'd never admit that to them.

Dinner last night had been extremely tense, not just because he was there but also because everyone was trying to keep Lana and Lynn separated. Both of whom tried to stay as far away from him as well. He caught the occasional glance at him from the odd person or two but didn't make a comment on it, he had seen Rita giving him odd looks, as if she were sizing him up for something.

The girls themselves tried to fill in the silence by talking about their plans for the week, aside from school. Any time one of them mentioned practise sessions or clubs Lincoln clamped up extra hard, doing his best to not blurt out he wasn't going. His silence would be their answer.

Just as it would be right now. The only problem he had this early morning was that he wasn't alone in his school walk. No. Luna had decided to get up just as early as he did to get to her school early too, which was strange because Luna was NOT a morning person. In fact, the purple clad rocker would often stay up late jamming to her music long before going to sleep.

For a moment Lincoln looked back at the resident rockstar, she was walking several steps behind him, her guitar case was strung over her back and inside was her favourite slanted X-shaped purple axe. She wasn't looking at him as they walked, she seemed more interested in the scenery around them.

He didn't care, the less she tried talking to him the better. If this was some play to get him to forgive her or anyone, it wasn't going to work. Not without Luna doing something to make up for everything she has done so far and there was a LOT to make up for.

He turned back to face forwards, soon Luna would have to break off onto a different path to go her own way to the high school. Then he would be free to relax, there was a small park between here and the elementary school. It would be a good place to quickly unwind without drawing too much attention to him.

His wishes for a silent walk were sadly denied as he heard Luna pick up the pace in her steps. She fell in line next to him, standing a little over a head taller.

"So," the rocker started, trying to gain his attention. "Got any plans this week?"

Aside from staying as far away from her and her sisters as possible? None yet but he was sure something would come up this week for him, perhaps Clyde would invite him out for a day. Or he could just wander around Royal Woods in search of something to occupy his time before he had to go home.

Luna seemed to pick up on his silence, a frown forming on her face when she realised he didn't want to talk.

"Look dude." She paused, her face scrunched together as she tried to find the right words to say. "I-I get that you're angry, I get that you hate us but please talk to me dude."

There was nothing to talk about until people started taking their heads out of the ground and had a look at the situation for what it really was. Not what they assumed it to be. The bond that he and Luna once shared - that she once cherished - was gone, broken and shattered into a thousand pieces.

When she finally earned his forgiveness, even then nothing would be the same between them, he knew that much for sure.

Up ahead he could see the crossing in which the two of them would part ways for the rest of the day. Hopefully, until much later. He wanted to pick up his pace, to get there faster but he knew he wouldn't outrun Luna. He may have been fast but Luna had longer legs and would easily keep up, especially since he had his backpack on and wasn't really in an energetic state.

So for now he held his resolve and kept walking with his head facing forwards. No matter what she said, he wouldn't respond. He wasn't being harsh or unfair, he was showing her the exact same level of care that she showed him three weeks ago.

He frowned slightly, had it really been three weeks since everything started? It didn't feel like it, in fact, it felt like everything started just days ago. Hell it felt like it happened this morning.

It was so... Surreal. The days felt like they were blending together, all playing out over an extremely short period of time yet... The incident had started three weeks ago, he was kicked out thirteen days ago and has been in the house for eleven. It may have even been longer then that.

He sighed, shaking his head as he did so. Just as he got to the end of the pavement he began to turn towards his school.

A hand suddenly landed on his shoulder, pulling him back as he tried to walk forwards.

On shear reflex - acquired from his many spars with Lynn - Lincoln spun his body backwards, pulling his shoulder out of the grip and using his other hand to slap at the offending appendage. Which happened to be one of Luna's hands.

His rocker sister stared at him in shock, having not expected such a reaction from the white haired - normally placid - boy. Her hand was held close to her chest, in an attempt to cradle the pain away. Pain being used a little extremely as it was nothing more than a minor sting on her hand.

They stared at each other, both finally making eye contact with one another for the first time in days. The seconds passed by slowly as the situation loomed down on each of them. It was Lincoln who found his voice first.

"Don't touch me." His voice came out slow with waves of annoyance lapping within the words. His hands balled , as if sensing that he would need to use them.

He would never strike at his own family, not even Lynn, all the little fights they had were nothing compared to the real fights that the older six could get into. Not even the brawl for the sweet spot could compare, or when they fought over money. However, he was starting to weigh his own morals on the subject. Perhaps someone may be on the receiving end of hits soon if they kept up aggravating him.

"L-Lincoln... I... I'm sorry, r-really I am." Luna slowly fiddled her fingers together, trying to regain her confidence. "I just w-want you to tell me what's wrong and I don't mean with you... I mean between us."

Lincoln stared at her in the same way Lisa would when someone - typically Leni - Would say they didn't understand something _simple_. What was _wrong_ was obvious, he was peeved about the whole bad luck ordeal... And more. He supposed he should cut them a little slack - just a sliver - even Lisa needed help to remember to add dinitrotoluene to her chemicals to reduce the risk of them exploding.

"Fine." He spat the word out, refusing to show signs of submission. " What's wrong between us? Everything, it's... Everything that has happened to me because of you. Now if you don't mind, I'm off to school. " he spun on his heel and quickly stormed across the road before any cars came down them.

Luna stood and watched as he went, a pang of pain flaring in her heart. This wasn't Lincoln, this wasn't the sweet little boy she once held after he was born, who she feed meals and ice cream to when he was young enough to be in the high chair. This was a very angry pre-teen, who was clearly distraught... And it was her fault.

She turned round the corner, pushing her way to the high school. The purple axe suddenly felt much heavier then it was, dragging her shoulders down to the ground as she walked. The rocker had hoped to be able to get through to Lincoln, to talk to him and get to the source of his current mood.

She hadn't expected that to happen.

She looked up the the sky, her pixie cut hair rustling in what little breeze was available. She couldn't remember the last time she was up this early without pulling an all-nighter, it felt... Rejuvenating. No wonder Lincoln was leaving early. Today was an exception to her normal routine, her friends and band mates Sam and Marcus all wanted to have a quick practice season before school started and decided that using the schools music rooms would be best as many other students also did so.

She prepped up as that thought ran through her mind, normally the three of them would have to jam after school or on the weekends and they were normally restricted in terms of noise when around each other's homes. Even her's as the garage was very close to Mr. Grouse's house and he hated the noise. Although he became slightly more lenient after Christmas.

She walked faster, her worries slowly bleeding away from her as she let them take the back burner of her mind.

After a good twenty minutes of walking she saw her school come into focus at the end of the road. It wouldn't be long now, her feet were now begging to go on rest. As she drew closer she could make out other teens and students milling around outside, choosing to enjoy the air while they still could before being tormented to six hours of torture...

Education, she meant education.

Just as she drew close she could see one of her band mates sitting at the bottom of the steps. They wore a short teal jacket, a white t-shirt, a pair of deep burgundy coloured jeans with tears in the knees the colour being accented by their dark purple ankle boot.

Sam Sharp.

One of Luna's friends and classmates. Even from here Luna could see the teal coloured streak of hair that sat on her head. It surprised her that someone other than herself would do something so... Rebellious. She liked it.

The blonde rocker looked up as she approached, smiling as the two drew closer together.

"Hey Luna."

"Sup dude."

The two gave each other a quick hug before setting off for the front doors.

They walked through the halls quickly, dodging around what few other students were littering the halls.

"Finally we can just sit back and jam." Luna turned to San as she spoke, paying attention to the blonde haired rocker with interest . "No more 'turn off that noise' or 'shut off that devil music' or my personal favourite 'LOUD SHUT OFF THAT RACKET' " With each phrase said Sam imitated a different voice of each band mates annoying neighbours. When she attempted to imitate Mr. Grouse is when Luna lost it and doubled over laughing.

It was close but her voice was a few octaves too high for it to work but it was because of that that Luna found it so funny to begin with.

The two teens were stopped in the hallway, with Luna bending forwards slightly as she laughed and Sam stood by her with a pleasant smile waiting for her friend to regain herself.

Once Luna finally sorted herself out she stood up tall with a small smile gracing her lips, with her spirits lifted she made off for the music rooms. Sam quickly following behind her without missing a beat.

"You alright Luna?"

The question seemed to strike her , and nearly knocked her raising mood out of her.

"What'cha mean dude? I'm fine."

" Luna we've known each other for a few years now, I think I know you well enough to see that your not _fine,_ as you put it. "

Silence quickly engulfed to two of them and for a moment Sam feared she may have just shoved a wedge between their friendship. She did know Luna for a long time and she has heard just about every story of her family that could possibly be said. She still couldn't believe she had nine sisters and a brother, she hadn't meet any of them but that was because they could only practise at the Louds when most, if not all, of them were away from the house.

"It's... I've messed up dude, made a mistake... I don't know how to fix it or where to start in trying to figure it out. "

Sam watched as Luna tensed instinctively, tension radiated from her in waves.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out, but if you need to talk about it I'm up for listening. "

Luna gave a small weak smile to her long time friend, she was glade to have someone like her at her side but she wasn't sure if she could tell her about.._. That._

_ "_Thanks dude, I'll keep that in mind... It's just that it's... Personal. "

"Well whatever _it _is I won't judge ok? Friends look out for each other and even though you've got your family we both know that sometimes even they can't be trusted with some things. "

For one single second Luna truly believed what she said but it faded quickly, this wasn't something that you could simply accept let alone go on without interjecting. She just had to hope that Sam never needed to find out or if she did she truly would look out for her.

Cause there was a little more then friendship on the line.

* * *

School was boring, very boring.

Tedious, slow, wasteful. That's how Lynn Loud Jr. Would describe it, surrounded by the same faces and same subjects each day.

From beginning to end there was nothing to do aside from bear the pain and pretend to listen. If it came down to it she would book in Lisa for tutoring, especially math.

God she hated math. Why try to find X when you could be outside playing sport?

Lynn couldn't help it, she was a jock at heart, the idea of staying inside and doing nothing didn't sit well with her. She needed to get out and be active, to run, jump and kick a ball over three hundred feet across a field and score a touchdown.

This, sitting here as her teacher droned on and on about math was not fun. As much as she wanted to slam her head into her desk she knew it would only draw attention to her, attention that she didn't want at the moment.

In order to avoid as much suspicion as possible she kept her head forwards and her eyes trained on her teachers hand. So far it has kept her out of trouble for not paying attention, even if she wasn't listening to a single thing being said.

If Lynn's grade dropped to the point that it ran the risk of getting her dropped off any sports teams she would go get Lisa to tutor her until her grades rose back up to standard. She would probably need to offer to be a part of one of her crazy experiments but it would be worth it to stay on her sports teams.

Then again, she wasn't sure if even that would convince Lisa to tutor her. There had been an air of weariness between them lately, Lisa would make sure to never be left in the same room as her alone. If she had to go near her the young scientist would wait until one of the older sisters or their parents to be close by and the two hadn't spoken since the sibling meeting.

Lynn knew why, cause her cameras had caught her threatening Lincoln with her bat. That meant there were two who could use that information against her. One for payback and the other for experiments.

When she thought back to that day she couldn't point out were it went wrong. If Lincoln didn't keep putting off her games she wouldn't have had to resort to such measures, why didn't he want to go? Because he wanted to read comics?

That was completely lame, why read comics when he could go and see her dominate in the field? That was far more exciting than adults in spandex suits fighting each other. Then again, she liked wrestling so perhaps that was a little hypocritical.

It didn't matter. At the end of the day If Lincoln didn't try to weasel his way out of supporting her then she wouldn't of had to use her bat.

Then again, if he hadn't come that day she might have won without his bad luck being at the game and messing everything up but then he would have missed out on her win.

Ugh, it was a lot to think about and she really didn't want to go into a daze right in the middle of class.

Again she found herself drifting through her thoughts, trying to find some way to not die of boredom in the middle of class. The only thought that came to her was of Lincoln and his recent behaviour. She didn't mind that he was isolating himself, it kept all his bad luck contained to a single room, a room she would never go in again if she could help it.

How Lincoln could use his early mornings to go to school early was beyond her, why do that when you could start the day with a jog around the block? or half the neighborhood in her case.

Of course then her parents went and messed with what was a perfect system and _made _Lincoln sit at the table with them for dinner. Just like they messed up the plan to teach Lincoln a lesson about lying. In her eyes, Lincoln wasn't outside for long enough for all his bad luck to bleed out of him.

A thought occurred to her that made her bite her lip, she knew that if the truth got out - and not just about threatening Lincoln - then she would be in a massive amount of trouble. Hell, trouble was too light a word to use in this situation. She would be pulverized by her sisters.

As much as she knew she could easily run away from them the thought that they could or would gang up on her made her shudder. It wasn't a nice image to imagine being on the receiving end of.

However, so long as she kept her mouth shut and kept certain people away from certain topics and conversations no-one would be any wiser. That meant both Lisa and Luan had to be kept under her surveillance until everything blew over... or blew up.

That in itself was going to be far more tedious then it would probably be worth, although she would like to keep her head on her shoulders more than not.

Ugh... She was so screwed. She knew Lincoln could only be so quiet for so long, the same went for Lisa and Luan.

She's really was screwing herself over wasn't she? It was bad enough potentially three of her siblings had dirt on her but Luna had been a bit snippy with her lately, it started after her last win at the softball game or was it just after?

Not to mention Lana, the little grease monkey clearly didn't like her right now, although that was somewhat understandable. She did have to use a little... _persuasion_ to get her to co-operate. Odd, Lana practically jumped onto the bad luck train just as fast as Leni, yet after she returned from her alligator wrestling match she was... Different. She tried to get close to Lincoln again, to include him, to let his bad luck spread around. Lynn did not let it happen, it took breaking a few things, convincing her parents that Lana wanted to join them and the _persuasion._

Which would have all been caught on camera, she just realised.

Now she couldn't stop herself. With an audible groan she slammed her head into the table in front of her, all the students and the teacher stopping what they were doing to regard the brown haired athlete.

"Is there something you would like to share with the class Lynn? or am I boring you?"

Yep, math sucked.

* * *

If there was one thing that bothered Lincoln more then his sisters, it was Chandler. Lincoln hadn't seen hide or hair of the red headed boy the previous week, he didn't care as to why but right now he wished he had stayed wherever he had been.

Currently the obnoxious red head was seated at the next table to his own, his own group of lackeys surrounded him as he spoke about... Something. Probably how he missed the first week back but it didn't matter, he could see them glace at him occasionally, often after Chandler stopped talking.

Lincoln didn't understand what people saw in Chandler that made him popular. Was it the parties? Or was Chandler's obnoxious behaviour considered 'cool' and therefore that made him popular?

That didn't make any sense at all. If popularity was derived from poor behaviour then Lynn, Lola and probably even Lori would be considered the most popular people in royal woods, yet they weren't.

So whatever Chandler had going for him was completely unknown. To Lincoln at least.

He didn't care about it though. All he wanted was to be left alone for the rest of the day, his early encounter with Luna had left him in a foul mood for the rest of the day.

How could someone be so dense? This wasn't rocket science.

He could feel something impact the side of his head, he tilted his head towards the balled up but of paper before disregarding it entirely. His friends looked at him for a moment before ignoring it as well, except for Clyde who paid closer attention to Lincoln's expression.

He could see the edges of Lincoln's eyes crinkle in mild annoyance, a slight tension to his jaw and shifting in his eyes as he looked back and forth around the cafeteria. Clyde knew that Lincoln's weekend had gone bust but his current behaviour didn't fit in with that at all.

Not only that but he was acting the same way now as he was last week where he was avoiding his sisters. He knew this was something serious and he considered asking if his friend was ok but quickly backed off. Lincoln didn't look to be in the mood.

And there was only one person who could handle someone in such a mood, pulling out his phone he scrolled through his contacts before he found the one he wanted. Keeping an eye on Lincoln from the corner of his eye he compiled and sent a text.

Hopefully everything would work and Lincoln would forgive them later.

A hand slammed into the table in the table between Clyde and Lincoln, all the occupants of the table turned to look at Chandler.

"Hey Larry, word is you've been a bit moody today, care to explain?"

"He doesn't have to Chandler, do you see us questioning him?"

Everyone turned to Liam, Lincoln's group of friends giving a nod of agreement before turning back to the _popular_ kid.

"Well, no-one asked you farm boy."

"Well no-one wants to talk to you sewage boy. "

Silence reigned over the table as everyone waited for a retaliation. After a moment of since Chandler stood up straight and turned away without a word.

"He'll be back."

" Yep"

"Definetly"

Clyde peaked down to his phone and saw he had received a response. He gave a slight nod before looking back to Lincoln.

"You look ready to swing man. " Clyde nodded as Rusty voiced his thoughts, this was completely unlike Lincoln. There was far too much aggression to be ignored and several of them shifted a bit after a few seconds of silence.

"I'm fine guys, just had a rough morning is all."

For a moment it looked like Lincoln was going to say something else but he quickly clamped his mouth shut.

"I'm going for some fresh air, meet you guys back in class."

None of the boys made a move to stop him, mostly thanks to Clyde secretly gesturing them to stop.

Lincoln shook his head in an attempt to clear away his last encounter with Chandler, the boy had been bugging him all day with looks and whispers. He was in no mood to deal with anyone today not even-

As he passed the stairwell he was grabbed and yanked underneath them. Initially he tried to fight against his unknown assailant but was quickly pushed against a wall and got a look at his _attacker_... Ronnie Anne.

"Alright Lame-O, start talking."

"There's nothing to talk about Ronnie. "

"That's Bullshit Loud."

Lincoln froze, it was one thing to know swear words - he heard his older sisters say them fairly often - but to Say them was another thing, the last thing they needed was detention or worse, their parents knowing.

"This isn't you, something is wrong with you. Something to do with your sister's, now either you tell me or I'll beat it out of you snowflake. "

Without nowhere to run Lincoln did the only thing he could, he held his hands on front of him in an attempt to shield himself. "Alright, alright. I'll tell you... But later, meet me at the park after school ok? "

Ronnie stalked forwards, jabbing a finger into Lincoln's chest as she spoke lowly. "Don't bail on me loud, I expect to see you there."

Like that the Hispanic girl quickly walked away, acting as if she had never threatened him.

* * *

"THEY DID WHAT!?"

* * *

**A/N: Lots to say right now.**

**First of all, thank you for being patient with me. I wanted to get this chapter done much sooner then this but real life is being an ass right now and if I don't get some stuff done everything's going to spiral quickly.**

**Secondly the Marcus character is Luna's unnamed male friend from the episode 'L is for Love', turns out he doesn't have a name in show and figured that Marcus fit him. For those who are still unaware, I'm referring to the guy who we all thought was Sam when we first watched the episode.**

**thirdly: one of my long time supporters (who has been here from chapter one) and has been messaging me almost daily asking questions (I don't give out spoilers, so don't worry) has finally earned the courage to write up his own story and post it up.**

**I have been helping him with ideas and answering questions regarding his ideas and while I take no credit towards their story I would say I have helped them to define what they are doing.**

**The story is called "Confessions of a grade school goth" by "RawToonage Press" it is a Lucy focused story, (No further spoilers) it's currently new and only the prologue has been uploaded but I would appreciate it if you could show as much support to it as you have mine, I only felt the need to continue my story thanks to all your positivity and I know everyone else would feel the same.**

**Now I have a vague idea as to some of the plot points and key focuses on the story are (again no spoilers) and can confidently say that the story is only going to get better from here on out.**

**One last point for anyone who wants a laugh. The anonymous reviewer 'Loud hater' has left a review begging me to not delete any more reviews from him and I have one thing to say to that.**

**Reviews are only deleted when they are inappropriate and/or terribly rude. All but two of your reviews are as such and both of them are you telling me to not delete your reviews. That is all.**


	11. Chapter 11

Lincoln watched as Ronnie Anne paced back and forth, a bewildered and far off look on her face. To his right his best friend Clyde was sat on the bench with him, with a look of utter surprise.

The three of them were in the park. The school had let out just half an hour ago and like Lincoln promised, he meet with Ronnie Anne to talk to her.

He was only slightly surprised that Clyde had joined them too, it didn't surprise him that Clyde wanted to help, what did surprise him was how far Clyde was going to try to help.

So, for the past twenty minutes Lincoln had explained everything that has happened to him over the summer. Starting at the point where Clyde left to visit his nana and going up until today. To say they were shocked was the understatement of the century.

Lincoln took no amusement or satisfaction in seeing their reactions, this wasn't something he would do to keep himself entertained for a few minutes. As much as he would have liked to lie and say something else had happened he knew it would come back to bite him later.

That and both his friends would be able to tell he was lying, he wasn't particularly good at it.

Ronnie was the only of the two that was still capable of functioning after he said his story and other than Ronnie's previous outburst no-one had said a word after he stopped. The Hispanic was still pacing in front of the two boys, hands clenching and unclenching into fist's as she struggled to come up with a valid response to what she had been told.

Clyde, however, was a different story. The black haired boy was stuck staring into space, head faced towards Lincoln and his eyes pointing at roughly eye level with the white haired boy. His lips were parted ever so slightly that it gave off the impression that he had been ready to say something but stopped, his eyes were glazed over as his thoughts ran rampant.

He didn't blame his friends for the way they reacted, had he been in their shoes and heard this very same story he wouldn't have believed it himself. But he lived it, he experienced it, he knew it happened because it happened to him.

The white haired boy watched as Ronnie stopped pacing, breathing slightly heavier than normal she turned towards him with a look of irritation but not one that was directed at him.

"I... How do I know your not lying Loud?" There was no anger in her voice, just cold disbelief. She couldn't believe it, there was no way that Lincoln's family would do such a thing. Sure they fought and argued over every little thing they could but to actually kick him out the house, ban him from their activities and even sell his belongings was just utterly unbelievable.

He answered with the one thing he knew would push Ronnie over the edge.

"What do I have to gain from lying Ronnie?"

The answer was nothing, there was nothing to be gained from lying about all this. Everyone knew that Ronnie was far from an emotional person, she wouldn't give out sympathy towards anyone, she wouldn't care if someone was having the worst day of their lives.

"But..Wh-how could they?" Lincoln could only watch as Ronnie began to have a mental breakdown. She was trying so very hard to stay in control of her thoughts but she was at an utter loss for words.

Lincoln could only shrug at her, truthfully, he didn't understand how they could so it. He understood why, cause they thought he was bad luck. How they could do it was a whole other question that he didn't know how to answer.

"I-I... That's so messed up... I d-don't see how they could do that."

"Well, I did lie to them."

Her facial expression changed from disbelief to angry so fast no-one would have blamed you for missing it.

"That doesn't matter Lincoln, your family went way overboard with this, so did you. All you had to do was tell them you wanted some alone time and they should have left you be, you're one person not ten."

He shook his head, he had thought about that, how that should have been what he did do instead of what he actually did but Lynn herself proved that they didn't care about what he wanted. He told Lynn he wanted to rest, to read his comic but she didn't allow it to happen.

"I tried that Ronnie, Lynn threatened me with her bat. What was I supposed to do?"

Ronnie let out an uncharacteristic growl as she resumed her pacing, Lincoln quickly glanced over to Clyde. His best friend was so far in thought that now he looked like a fish out of water and he didn't seem to respond to anything.

"You should have told your parents, they could have sorted it then and there."

He looked back to his used-to-be-bully, he shook his head at her again.

"That wouldn't have worked, those two took the girls side straight away with the bad luck thing. So they would have agreed with Lynn that I had to go to her game to support her." He paused for a moment, letting that thought run a bit further in his head. "They always take the girls side; the sister fight protocol, the grocery store incident and just about any time it's me against my sisters."

"Well... That's them playing favourites, always choosing them over you. We both know it wasn't your fault for the store incident, that was your sister's for arguing over the fact you were allowed to get yourself something because you decided to help and managed to save enough money to get it and everything on the list."

Lincoln remembered that day well, he had wanted to buy the zombie bran cereal and offered to do the shopping for his mother in exchange for the cereal but only if he saved enough money to do so, which he managed to do. However each of his sisters had come along too but instead of help like they promised to they ran around the store acting like two year olds on a sugar rush. At the end of the day, after his sister had knocked down an entire stack of cans (by pushing him into it) their entire family was banned and it was his fault. Rita hadn't even thought to punish the girls, just him.

Sure the girls went and got him a box of zombie bran the next day but that didn't change anything.

"I guess your right, it's pretty hard for me to get their attention. Not only that but I'm pretty much on the bottom of the list of 'important thing to deal with '. "

" Well it's completely unfair on you, you could be sick and your parents would still favour your sister's over you. When was the last time they did something with you and only you?"

Lincoln opened his mouth to respond... Yet nothing came out. He closed his mouth as he thought about that some more. When was the last time he had one on one time with his parents? With anyone?

The answer to the first question never came, cause there was no answer but he did remember the last time he had real one on one time with one of his sisters. It was with Lana when the two of them had worked extremely hard to win dairyland tickets by winning a pageant contest. That day had been amazing, especially since the two of them got to go on the milkshaker ride.

Ronnie Anne took his silence as his answer.

"That's exactly what I'm trying to say Loud, they don't make time for you but they will happily clear their timetables for your sister's."

He couldn't argue there, he had seen it happen time and time again. There was even one time where Lynn Sr. had cancelled an activity with him to make room to help three different sisters who were all doing the same thing together. He couldn't remember how he reacted to that but he must have just accepted it back then and moved on, he supposed in a family as big as their they had to please as many of them at once to keep the peace instead of spending an equal amount of quality time with everyone.

Quantity over quality was just a simple fact in their house.

Lincoln grimaced slightly as he realised that he may have been venting to his friends a lot more in the past then he realised, that was the only way Ronnie could know halve those things. It didn't matter, what mattered was what he was going to do now. He had yet to fill these two in on all the details of his plan and if he didn't do so soon they would unintentionally ruin everything for him.

He looked up at Ronnie and froze when he saw her on her phone.

"What are you doing?"

Without looking up from her phone she quickly replied. "Telling Bobby about this."

In a single heart-pounding second Lincoln felt his soul leave his body before slamming back into him, without thinking about it he sprung up from his seat and snatched the phone out of the hands. The sudden action caused Clyde to break out of his stupor and pay attention to the scene before him.

Ronnie quickly spun towards the snow haired child, a hand swiping around to retake her phone from him.

" What's your problem Lincoln? "

Lincoln held the phone as far away from the Hispanic girl as he could, making sure to not press any other buttons on the phone.

"You can't tell Bobby, you can't tell anyone about this."

" Why not? "

The two of them turned towards Clyde, who sat on the bench with a curious expression on his face and intrigue clear in his speckled eyes.

"Because if we tell anyone outside of ourselves then my family is going to get in a hell of a lot of trouble. I don't mean a slap on the wrist and a warning trouble, I mean tear my family apart trouble."

The two other preteens halted for a moment, It wasn't often that Lincoln got this serious about something he wasn't enthusiastic about.

"How so?" Ronnie's question seemed to stump Lincoln for a moment, he sighed as he turned and sat back down on the bench, holding Ronnie's phone in his hand as if it were his own. He could see the half written message and was tempted to just delete it now.

He waited until Ronnie had seated herself on his left before he started talking again.

"It's just... What they did was illegal, I don't know how much so... Or to what extent. But I do know that my parents will face real legal charges should anyone else ever find out."

He stopped to let out a sigh, quietly giving the message on Ronnie phone a read. If finished and sent it could and would destroy his families life.

" If that happens all my sisters and me will be separated from one another, permanently. Think about how that would affect everyone; Lily would grow up without her parents, the twins would have no-one but each other, Leni probably wouldn't be able to continue without all our help and she would be picked on her for being... Leni. "

The Hispanic and only child both looked at each other over Lincoln's hunched back, Clyde gave Ronnie a knowing look and she responded with a nod.

"Ok, we won't tell."

For a moment Lincoln had a hard time registering what was just said but when it did his shoulders sagged down and he felt a weight be removed from his chest.

"Thank you."

Pain erupted in his left shoulder, he turned and looked towards Ronnie's half smug half annoyed face looking back at him.

"But don't think for a moment were not getting involved, you're not leaving us out of this."

Lincoln opened his mouth to protest but was quickly cut off by Clyde.

"sorry Lincoln but I agree with Ronnie, we're helping. So just... Tell us how we can help. " Clyde paused to push his glasses up his face. "You do have a plan right?"

Lincoln gave a coy smile. "Of course I do. I'm not called the Man with the plan for nothing you know."

Ronnie shook her head with a amused smile on her face, silently taking her phone out of Lincoln's hands - who offered no resistance - and quickly went about deleting her message. " So, you going to tell us Lame-O? "

"Yeah," He gave a nod as she started to think about how the two to them could be integrated in to his plan. " Its simple, all I need you two to do is keep me busy, I know that sounds weird but I need any and every excuse to stay out of my house until curfew."

"I don't care if it's just to walk around town, hang at Gus', the park or even go round yours to help with homework. I'm up for it as long as I'm kept out of my house and away from my sisters."

"Until my sisters earn forgiveness and trust from me I have no reason to be near them."

Ronnie scoffed, as far as she was concerned, no-one deserved Lincoln's forgiveness any time soon. "We'll help with that but I don't see why you're bothering to go through all this, they don't care, so why should you? "

He could see how his friend came to that conclusion, if Lincoln could have it any other way he would have done it that way but he wanted this to be kept as much a secret as possible.

"Because their family Ronnie, they deserve the chance to prove that they really do care. If they don't try, then I won't care about them. It wouldn't be right to turn them away if they were trying to apologise, would it."

"That's fair." Lincoln nodded alone with Clyde's agreement. "You shouldn't ignore someone if their trying to do right by you."

" Whatever, it's your plan Lincoln, so what are we going to do today? "

The three friends all looked at each other, there was a lot they could do but what could all three of them do together?

"You two up for some muscle fish back at my place?"

Both Lincoln and Ronnie smiled at the dark skinned boy. "Only if you can handle losing McBride."

" Right back at you Santiago. "

Lincoln chuckled at his two friends as they got on along with each other. It wasn't everyday someone passed around friendly jabs at Ronnie Anne. Slowly the three of them walked their way out of the park and towards the McBride residence.

Just as they reached the edge of the park Ronnie leaned on to whisper into Lincoln's ear. "Just because I'm going along with your plan doesn't mean I'm going to play nice with your sister's, unless you say otherwise I'm treating all of them the way you should be treating them."

Lincoln knew their was nothing he could do to stop the Hispanic girl from staying true to her word, hopefully he would be able to keep her from going overboard . "Couldn't stop you if I tried Ronnie, just don't treat Lily that way, she hadn't done any wrong."

" Hmm, obviously she's what? A year old?"

* * *

Lola stared at herself in her mirror, taking note of every detail she could see in her reflection. There's was a lot she could say about herself; beautiful, gorgeous, pretty.

There were other things she could call herself too but not openly; deceiving, cunning, manipulative and a down right horrifying ball of rage covered over by a layer of cuteness.

A layer that was going to be peeled away very soon if her hair didn't sort itself out soon.

Lola grumbled as she brought the brush back to her hair again, as she looked at it she could see the tangles and knots all within her marvelous hair. It wasn't easy keeping her hair maintained, it took a lot of work and skill. Work that she didn't want to do and skill that she didn't want to bother to learn... Yet.

She would have to do it on her own one day, however, that did not mean she had to do it today. Especially since she had nine siblings who were capable of doing it for her... Lola paused her brushing as she gave that an extra thought. Just as she thought, she had been wrong, really only four of her siblings wouldn't mind brushing her hair. Lori, Leni, Luan and Lincoln.

Sadly Lori was off working a shift at Gus' grubs and games - and she would be doing so for the rest of the week - Leni was off with some of her friends window shopping in preparation for actual shopping. Although Luan was in, Lola didn't like the idea of receiving a pun each time her hair would be brushed, especially with this many knots.

That left only Lincoln, she hadn't really seen him much the last week, other than the occasional glimpse of the white haired boy at school or when he joined them for dinner, on top of which he hadn't spoke two words to her after the last time she tried to enter his room.

She could ask Lincoln but she had to find some way to convince him to go along with it without objecting.

Blackmail it was then.

If there was one thing Lola prided herself in - other than being the prettiest Loud and pageant phenomenon - it was her ability to blackmail those she couldn't get her own way with.

She lost count with the number of times she blackmailed each of her siblings for her own needs and this time wouldn't be any different. She had the perfect secret to use, if anyone other than herself knew about it then Lincoln would be in so much trouble.

With her mind made up she quickly got off her stool, picked up her hair supplies and made for her door. Convincing Lincoln wouldn't take two seconds, it was how long her hair was going to take that would take the longest.

Turning towards the end of the hall after exiting her room, Lola took no notice of the doors worn and damaged features. She mentally recited exactly what she was going to say when she got into Lincoln's room. Since she was blackmailing anyway, why not go the whole way and just enter his room forcefully anyway?

He wouldn't be able to say anything about it, not with what she knew hanging over his head.

With her hands full holding all of her hair products, she raised a foot and slammed it into the door, causing it to open inwards with a force most would not expect to come from a six year old.

"LINCOLN, YOU'RE BRUSHING MY HAIR OR I'LL TEll Lori... about... " The pink princess stopped mid sentence, standing in the middle of her brother's room for the first time in over a week. She found it devoid of its inhabitant, the makeshift bed was messy, his toys were neatly arranged on the ottoman table, the boxes which contained his stuff was piled on the corner and the piles of clothes were next to those.

Overall, she couldn't move three steps without walking into something, not even two or one step in some places. She couldn't understand how Lincoln could live in such a small room, to her, there would only be enough room to have a bed and her entire trophy collection that she earned from winning pageants. Well Lincoln made do as he always did, she can't remember if she's ever heard him complain about his room, other than that one time Lynn bunked with him.

Without Lincoln being here she couldn't use him to get her hair done, she would have to endure Luan's puns or wait until Lori or Leni came home. None of which she was favourable towards.

There was Lucy but Lola doubted she could do it as well as the others could, sure all of the girls brushed their hair - except Luna - but one had to have skill to get her hair up to perfection. That was why she mainly wanted Lincoln to do it, he was the best at it.

Unfortunately it seemed he wouldn't be back until who knows when and for all she knew it wouldn't be until just before his curfew. Far too long for her to wait, that much she knew.

She turned to leave, ready to resign herself to Luan's judgement - as least until Lincoln came home - when her eye caught a crumpled ball of paper.

Normally such a thing would seem trivial - and it probably was - but to one who got what they wanted through blackmail and knowing the right thing, she could tell it was something important. Or at the very least interesting. She placed all of her hair products down just outside his door, did an about face, then reached for the piece of paper.

By feel alone she could tell it had been done recently, within the past two days at most. She knew because the paper was still rough, older paper was a bit softer. Carefully she began to open up the ball of paper, as she unfolded it she took note of what appeared to be a picture on its surface but there wasn't enough of it to make out what it was yet.

She continued to undo the crumpled paper in a similar fashion to if she was trying to reach the centre of a flower by pushing its petals back. When she finally had the paper nearly flat she placed it against the wall before turning her hand over it to smooth it out, accidentally leaving the drawing slightly smudged.

On a closer inspection of the paper she realised that she had been holding it upside down, she quickly rotated it the right way round. Before she could get a good look at the drawing she heard a rough cough come from behind her.

She spun on her heel, thankful that she hadn't been wearing heels today. There stood Lana, her older twin, who seemed to stare at her with an aura of... Frustration. Quickly hiding the drawing behind her back with one hand - even re-scrunching it again - she looked at Lana with mock innocence. Something that didn't actually work on the mechanic.

"Oh, hey Lana, didn't hear you coming. Need something?" The princess could see that her charm wasn't working, it never worked on Lana, she was the only sibling that needed to be blackmailed for her to have her own way.

"Yeah," Lana stepped past Lola's hair products, _accidentally_ kicking them further into the hallway with the heel of her foot. "Tell me what you're doing in Lincoln's room."

"Oh just... Looking for something I misplaced. "

Lana did not believe that for a single second, her eyes darted all around Lincoln's room before settling back onto Lola.

"You misplaced something... In Lincoln's room... Where no-one has managed to get in to... For over a week? "

I'm an instant Lola dropped her display of innocence, she knew she was caught out, she knew when she had lost.

"Ok, so maybe I'm not looking for anything but what's it to you muddy?"

The oldest twins eyes narrowed, staring down at the princess with more scrutiny than one of her pageant judges.

"How about the fact that Luna told us that Lincoln said his room is off limits, permanently."

Lola scoffed, placing her free hand on her hip and waving her other hand dismissively. "Oh, posh it's not like he's going to know I was in here. "

She quickly noticed what she was holding in her hand and stuffed it behind her back again but it was too late, Lana had already seen it.

"What was that? "

Lola put on a sheepish smile, her gapped teeth showing. That was not something she wanted anyone to see, not until she got a good look at it herself.

"Just a drawing... Of me, it's got a drawing of how i want my hair done."

Lola could see that her twin did not buy her story for a second but she knew she needed to keep her cool, otherwise things could get a lot worse then they were.

Lana's face remained blank as she tried - and failed - to see what was behind her twins back.

"Then you wouldn't mind showing me it would you?" Lana held her hand forwards, beckoning Lola to hand the piece of paper over. "Unless, it isn't yours to begin with."

Now Lola knew she was in trouble, she could either hand it over and be caught out or refuse and be caught out. There was no winning in this situation... If you were anyone but her.

Slowly she stepped forwards, hand held behind her back as she did so. When she drew closer she pulled the paper out from behind her back, showing it's crumpled state.

Just as she was about to place it in her twins waiting hand she quickly shot forwards, barging past the mechanic without stopping. She didn't make it five steps before she felt herself get tackled to the floor, her hand holding onto the paper harder to make sure she didn't drop it.

"Hand it over Lola, I know thats Lincoln's. "

The twins quickly began to grapple one another, rolling around on the carpet floor of the hallway just outside Lynn's room.

"Is not, I found it first, so it's mine."

" You found it in Lincolns room, that makes it Lincoln's. "

They continued to roll until Lana had Lola pinned beneath her, Lola had her free hand up against Lana's collar bone in an attempt to hold her back. Her hand which held the drawing was being held 'above' her head, relatively speaking. Lana had one hand holding onto Lola's dress by the shoulder, her other hand trying - and failing - to reach the piece of paper.

"He obviously doesn't want it if he threw it away. "

"It was in his room."

" It was crumpled in the corner. "

Grabbing hold of Lana's dirty overalls Lola quickly spun her body to the side, dragging Lana down to the ground. The mechanic hit the floor with a thump, Lola was about to run away when she felt a large clump of her hair being pulled backwards.

With a yell of pain she was pulled down to the ground with Lana, both hands working away to remove her sisters iron grip.

"Let go of my hair!"

" Not until you give it to me. "

Lola let out another yell as she felt her hair getting pulled tighter, then suddenly the pain vanished and she felt Lana's weight lift off her. Looking up she saw Luan holding Lana back, one hand on each shoulder.

"What's got you two all rolled up?" Luan let out a humored laugh before snapping on a serious face. " No but seriously what's going on here? "

"She stole something from Lincoln's room. " Lana pointed an accusatory finger at her younger twin, whilst still trying to squirm free from Luan's grip.

"Is this true Lola?"

Having sat up during the exchange Lola dipped her head down to avoid looking Luan in the eyes. "Yes."

"Can you tell me why?" Being unable to see Luan's face Lola did not notice that she wasn't trying to scrutinise her.

" I found it when I was in Lincoln's room, I was only in there cause I wanted him to do my hair. "

Luan nodded to herself, giving Lana's arm a pat and silently directing her to the stairs. The young mechanic hesitated for a moment before silently obliging.

"Well, why don't we return what was taken and then I'll get your hair done yeah?"

" Ok. " There was little Lola could do but resign to her fate. Hopefully she could handle Luan's quips for the next hour.

She watched as Luan moved up and down the hall collecting all of her stuff that had been scattered during the little scuffle.

Knowing she had to do her part she looked to her hand to see what sort of condition the paper was now in. To her surprise - and horror - it was gone. A glace around the hallway proved that it was nowhere in sight, quickly she made for Luan's room, hopefully it would turn up soon.

* * *

Unseen and forgotten, Lucy sat in the vents. Hands clutched into the scrunched up bit of paper that the twins were fighting over.

She stared at the art work that has been drawn marvelously and then abandoned without care. Despite it being slightly smudged she could see the picture clearly, it stirred painful emotions in her chest and not the kind she usually liked to indulge herself in.

No, this was pain and hurt, guilt and disgust. If she could, she would write a poem about how she felt but she couldn't find it in her to try to, no poem was going to express the raw emotions that she could feel coming off of the paper.

A drawing that came straight from Lincoln's heart and soul, something he had put passions and emotion into - just like she did with her poems.

She couldn't help it, slowly she curled in on herself and began to cry silently with none around to hear.

Like a whisper in the void.

* * *

**A/N: there you go, another chapter done. Sorry for the wait, it would have been done sooner but I had a few problems come up recently.**

**Again, let me know about any mistakes if you see them.**

**Loud hater, the only reason your reviews weren't deleted was because none of them were inappropriate and one of them was an actual suggestion.**

**However - and this is to everyone - just because you give a suggestion doesn't mean it will be part of the story, it means I will think about how it could work with what I already have planned then decide if I should use it.**


	12. Chapter 12

The sound of mashing buttons echoed around the room, small noises of frustration or surprise usually followed after more intense clicking sounded around the room.

Currently Lincoln, Clyde and Ronnie Anne were all sitting in Clyde's living room at his house. One of Clyde's father's, Howard, was sat behind all of them enjoying a mug of coffee whilst reading a newspaper. Clyde's other father was out at work still and wouldn't be back for a little while longer.

The trio of friends were happily playing away on Muscle Fish, taking turns to battle each other in one on one fights. Each with a variety of end results. The trio had been playing for several hours now - with a break once every twenty minutes as per requested by Howard - so far none of them seemed to be in a major lead above the others.

If one looked closely they would be able to see a single drop of sweat run its way down the side of Lincoln's face. At the moment, he and Ronnie were both facing off against each other, trying to gain an upper hand in their current fight.

Unfortunately, who won this battle would not determine who would win the game, as Ronnie had a two point lead ahead of Lincoln. A win would bring them closer to a tie and lose would drag him further behind, which would result in Clyde actually having a chance to catch up to Lincoln as he was only one point behind the white haired boy.

Lincoln's eyes darted back and forth between his controller and the TV screen, rapidly pressing buttons to initiate blocks and combos to whittle down Ronnies character's health until he felt more comfortable with their match up.

Clyde waited on baited breath as he watched the two of them fight on screen, unconsciously licking the insides of his teeth as he did so.

Lincoln's health bar was down to just under one quarter while Ronnie was sitting at a comfortable two thirds full. He watched as Lincoln dodged and weaved his way out of the Hispanic girls attacks and combos, each dodge being by the hair. The slightest mistake would result in Ronnie gaining momentum to dominate Lincoln in the match.

Unfortunately, one of Lincoln's escape maneuvers had left him wide open to attack. An opportunity that Ronnie greedily took up.

What neither Ronnie or Clyde knew was that Lincoln wanted her to do this.

Ronnie character landed a single hit against Lincoln's character, removing a quarter of his existing health. Before any more strikes could be executed Lincoln blocked and counter-attacked against Ronnie's - now stunned - character.

Pulling off a flawless combo that wiped away another third off of her max health.

"Dang it." The Hispanic began to mutter under her breath, and the boys were sure she was speaking spanish and... Less then nice - but not offensive - comments.

The two continued their spar, with Ronnie being far more careful to not fall for another of Lincoln's tricks.

Unfortunately for her, Lincoln was far sneakier then he appeared to be. Just as she was about to get the drop on him he quickly stunned her character before landing another flawless combo, wiping out Ronnie's remaining health and knocking her character out.

Lincoln whooped a cheer as he raised his hands in celebration, controller in hand and a look of satisfaction on his face. Although he wasn't winning, he had managed to trick Ronnie twice in one match, turning the odds against her and in his favor.

"Yeah, yeah... Don't let it get to your head Lincoln." Ronnie folded her arms behind her back as she leaned against the couch, a small joyful smile on her face.

"No promises, so..." The white haired child turned towards Clyde. "You and me? Or you two next?"

"Sorry to interrupt." Howard stepped forwards from where he had been standing, a look of genuine apology on his face. " But it's getting late, I'm afraid Lincoln and Ronnie will need to leave soon. "

Indeed, none of the pre-teens had kept track of time outside of the twenty minutes rule. So much so that time had dragged on to quarter past seven and last they remembered it was just four O'clock when they started.

Howard continued, his skinny body coming round to sit next to his adopted son. "I'd drop you two home personally but I'm afraid Harold won't be home until after your curfews, and I need to get our dinner done. Are you two going to be alright walking home together?"

Ronnie left out a small uncaring scoff. "We'll be fine Mr. McBride, besides, this is Royal Woods not a massive city, there's pretty much no danger here at all."

"Well..." Clyde's skinny father hesitated for a moment. Clearly torn between letting the kids get home on time or safely. "... Ok, but I'm calling your parents to let them know you two are on your way home now, so try not to stop for too long ok?"

Grabbing Lincoln's wrist Ronnie began to pull him towards the front door. "Sure thing Mr. McBride, oh! My mom's working a double shift again tonight, so be sure to ring the hospital to let her know."

"Sure thing, get home safe you two."

The McBrides watched the duo depart from their home, a hint of worry etching their faces.

Outside the duo started to walk down the street intent - if begrudgingly - to get home before their curfews came around.

Lincoln looked around as he walked, with it so close to summer still the sun was still setting later then what would be considered normal. So there was plenty of light for the next hour or so but he knew it would get dark quickly. For now he would take in the scenery around him before he had to subject himself to being trapped in the same 1200 square feet that his housemates also inhabited.

There was something about the fresh crisp air that made Lincoln relax a little, probably because it was better then the stale air of his home that also carried the scents of make-up, chemicals and dirty diapers.

"Lincoln." He turned towards Ronnie as she spoke, a look of seriousness plastered on her face. " Can I ask you something? "

For a single second he was willing to state that she had but warded off the impulse in favour of not annoying her.

"Sure."

Ronnie paused, her face scrunching up as she tried to find the best way to ask her question.

"Do you... Still love your family?"

With that Lincoln's mind went blank, thoughts escaped him and whatever he had been thinking was ripped right from his head before being disintegrated. The question itself was heavily loaded with every possible answer having repercussions but it was also who asked it that stunned him.

Ronnie was not the expressive type, far from it really but to hear her ask if he loved his family shook him at his core. Here was someone who couldn't say they didn't hate someone yet was asking if he loved someone - albeit family.

The white haired boy questioned if he really had Ronnie Anne figured out or if he didn't know her at all but shook off those thoughts as he focused on her question.

"That's... Hard to answer." He kept his eyes trailed on the floor, noticing that the two of them were just stood in the middle of the path. He must have stopped when he was asked that questkon. " It's hard to say, really."

"I think... When it comes to my younger sisters... Yeah, I do." He paused as he rubbed his arms , trying to encourage himself to talk again. "It's just... I'm disappointed with them and hurt too."

He looked up to her, catching a glimpse of her face and seeing a look of understanding on her. With a nod she motioned for him to continue.

"When it comes to everyone older then me... No, I don't. I know that whatever bond was left between me, Lynn and Luna is... Gone, it won't be the same between us. Even if they make things right."

"My... Parents... Let's say they'll never have to tell people they have a son, cause they don't anymore."

From the corner of his eyes he could see Ronnie frown at him, a look of genuine worry settled on her face and Lincoln once again found himself questioning if this really was Ronnie Anne 'Loco' Santiago or if he didn't know her well enough.

With a push of his leg he began to walk again, intent to return home despite how he felt about its inhabitants. He would have to sort though these thoughts later after he digested this sudden question.

"Don't blame you Lincoln, just..." There Hispanic girl stopped talking as she caught up to Lincoln and walked side by side with him. " ... Try... To not lose your mind over it, make your choice and do what you want. "

He could tell that that was not what she wanted to say, that she was covering up something else but he didn't pay much attention to it, it wasn't his place to question her.

Up ahead he could see his house come into view and secretly he dreaded walking through the front door. He knew though, that there was nothing any of them could do to complain or stop him from doing what he wanted. He was prioritising himself, just as each of the girls were prioritising themselves.

Just as the two of them arrived at the edge of the front lawn they stopped, hopefully none of the girls would see the two of them together and assume something was going on.

Ronnie gave Lincoln a gentle punch to his shoulder. "See you tomorrow Lame-O."

" See you Ronnie. "

The two split off from one another and as Lincoln drew closer to the house he could make out the noise clearer with each step. What had once been a mute dull noise was now a hurricane of sound, as his hand rested on the door handle he took a deep breath, let it out, then walked in.

* * *

"So, let me get this straightforward." Lisa adjusted her glasses , making sure they wouldn't fall off. "You want me to hack into Lincoln's phone, unblock you and make it so he can't block you."

The prodigal genius looked up towards her maternal parental unit AKA: Mother. She carefully looked at Rita's face, trying to find some form of dishonesty or trickery within her expression. The two of them were in her room at the moment, Lisa had been in the very edge of completing something important before her mother had walked in.

"Yes, I know it's a lot to ask and it kinda violates his privacy but me and your father are worried about him, we just want to be sure we're able to contact him should something go wrong or there be a problem."

The mother of eleven looked across Lisa's computer set up, while she couldn't understand what half of it was, even she could tell that Lisa had all the equipment to complete her request. Or at least she hoped so.

Unable to find an alternate agenda to her mother's request Lisa gave the idea a little thought, in her mind there were far more negatives then positives to this idea.

"While - technically - it is possible," Lisa could see her mother's eyes light up in relief, sadly it would not last long. "However, it is physically impossible to do so at the current time... Or any time soon. "

Just as Lisa had predicted, she saw Rita's face fall in defeat. "Is there a reason for that?"

" Multiple reasons, factually speaking. " Lisa turned in her chair, now facing her desk she began to tidy up all of her scraps of paper before a certain younger sister could get her infantile hands on them.

The baby of the family - Lily - was slowly walking her way towards Lisa's desk, her curiosity on the hanging pieces of paper that looked very chewable.

"Firstly, Lincoln has been keeping his phone on him at all times and has not returned home yet." Of course it would not be long before he did come home as his curfew was about to hit very soon.

" Secondly, Lincoln has an old flip phone and such outdated electrical communication devices do not possess today's current technological standards. I.E. Microchips and as such cannot be 'hacked'. " She used her fingers to create quotation marks, showing her loose use of the word.

The scientist quickly went about removing paper from the edge of the desk before her only younger sister could get hold of them.

"I can, however, decrypt his password with an algorithm to unlock it temporarily and be able to recode his phone to remove the block button but I would need access to his phone, which is impossible."

Normally Lisa always treated the word " impossible " as 'hard to achieve ' but even she knew when she was beaten. There was no way to get a hold of Lincoln's phone without enticing his frustration and negative mood at whoever would try to, a direct violation of one's privacy was not taken lightly after all.

Case and point: Lori.

"Sadly none of that means anything as... " She paused trying to find the nicest way to say what she wanted to say. After a short moment she realised that there was no 'nice' way, she could either be blunt or beat around the bush. "I refuse to do it."

Shock and confusion plastered it's way onto Rita's face, for a moment she stood still, trying - and failing - to comprehend what her second youngest daughter had told her. Lisa paid her little attention as she neatly stacked her paper notes into an organised pile before making sure Lily had not gotten her hands on any of them.

She had not.

"I.. Lisa, sweety, I don't think you are looking at this the right way." The prodigy only raised an eyebrow, her eyes sparkled with a look that could be translated to 'are you sure?'

"Do elaborate."

" Me and your father want to be sure Lincoln is safe at all times and to be able to contact him should an emergency happen, how can we do that if we can't call him? "

A fair and understandable point but Lisa couldn't help but feel that Rita had missed the point, not her.

"I apologize but I will not willingly be a part of this, we have done enough damage to Lincoln as it is, I do not wish to draw his ire to me, no matter how justified it is. "

"Ok, thank you for being honest with me sweety but if there is any way for both of us to have what we want, please tell me or your father. We just want Lincoln to be safe. "

"Sure."

With that Rita left her room, shutting the door behind her and keeping the two youngest girls within the room. Lisa couldn't help but scoff just as soon as the door had closed, she wanted to keep Lincoln safe? She would only believe that when she saw it.

She had willingly locked her only son out of the house for two nights as a punishment over lying, 'keeping him safe' was not on her agenda.

She heard Lily babble at her, her intellectual brain working to decipher what the tiny tot was saying.

"I do not see why you doubted me Lily, you know I think with only logic."

The prodigy powered up her computer, pulling up pages she had been on just before her mother had entered the room. She looked at the order on screen.

One standard single bed, a deluxe single mattress and brand new pillows and a cover (ace savvy themed of course).

All of that was to be a single step towards earning Lincoln's forgiveness, proving to him that she did care about him, even though she never showed it. However, she knew she could not buy her way to forgiveness she had to really prove that she wanted it. She had to earn it, even if it took a long time.

She had an entire list of things that she needed to do so she could - hopefully - earn back her brothers trust but she needed to get some of his ire off of her before she could. Prodigal certified genius or not, there was little a four year old could do to stand up against an eleven year old physically. Not that she thought Lincoln would hurt her if she tried talking to him but she didn't want to take unnecessary risks if she had a better alternative.

Besides, her parents were far too ignorant of the situation to remember to get Lincoln new furniture, so it might as well have been the only other person who paid the bills. Unfortunately she could get only those things, it wouldn't be for a few more weeks that she could properly budget the family's money to get Lincoln the chest of drawers and the shelves back but she was sure he would be very happy with having a real bed in his room.

Lily continued to babble, turning towards her small chest of toys to find something to play with.

"Indeed, our mother is a little oblivious to the obvious problem." Her eyes squinted at the transaction details, looking at a single - highly out of place - purchase that had her doubting her parents ability to understand standard child behavioral patterns. " And I only agreed to that because there is no way for both of us to have what we want, so I won't have to tell them anything. "

She clicked on the order button. She could not cancel it if she tried, not that she would try to. In five to seven days Lincoln would have his new bed and if anyone tried to argue with her on it... Well, she needed a few kidneys anway.

* * *

Tuesday was quickly becoming one of Lincoln's favourite days of the week.

Art class, a free period (for more art) and no P.E. and it wasn't monday, It was easy to see why Lincoln quickly began to like tuesdays. It was a day that could easily be considered one of his best type of school days, his affinity towards drawing helped him to relax and stay relaxed. The lack of stressful subjects meant he did not get unnecessarily stressed out, he was under enough as it was.

It was the last lesson of the day, math.

Math was Lincoln's least favourite subject. Not that he was bad at it, no quite the opposite. His grades were always high in all of his classes but math was just... Repetitive. Important but boring until the difficulty peaked, then it became frustrating for a few days as he tried to learn everything new.

Lincoln sighed as he erased his work, intent to start again as he had made a mistake. Despite being ahead of the class by a small margin - thanks to all of his extra work - he was still the slowest person in the class today. Normally he would be able to keep up with everyone else in terms of pace but his mind was cluttered today.

Ronnie's question from yesterday was still in the forefront of his mind, it would pop up at random times and distract him. Despite the answer that he gave, he knew there was more than what he said.

He knew that the bond between himself and Luna was shattered, it was gone, his love for her was destroyed and now they were nothing more then acquaintances and housemates. When it came to Lynn... Well there was a lot of anger being directed at the jock lately, the more he thought about her the more he realised that she never once cared for him like a brother. She only saw him as a punching bag and a scapegoat.

As for his other older sisters, he wasn't sure. He certainly didn't feel like he loved them but he didn't feel like he hated them either, that was bound to change depending on what they did to him from now on. Lori herself was slipping down the more she got angry with him, so much for being there to talk to when he needed her.

His younger sisters were in a different boat, he was upset at them, disappointed and hurt but at the end of the day they were little kids. They had very little to no control over the situation beyond voting on what to do, still knowing they could have agreed to go through all _that_ was enough to dampen his spirits. They - Like Lori - were tilting on a peak, they could go either way right now and it all came down to what they chose to do.

The ringing of the bell tore Lincoln out of his thoughts, bringing him back to reality. For a second he watched as each of his classmates began to pack up their things into their bags and begin to leave the room one by one, much to the charin of Mrs Johnson.

Just as the group of students began to filter out Lincoln stood from his desk and began to pack away his own belongings, although, much slower.

"Don't forget to complete your homework kids, I expect it on my desk by Friday morning." Mrs Johnson shouted after her class, making sure all of them heard her. She took their groans of annoyance as acceptance towards her words.

The white haired child began to move to the front of the class just as the last few students began to leave the room.

" Ah Lincoln, mind if I have a word with you quickly? "

What few remaining students let out a chorus of 'ohh's' and 'Lincoln's in trouble ' before laughing and walking out. Lincoln gave Clyde a look that told him to continue without him.

"I'll wait for you."

The last student left the room just as Lincoln stood on the other side of his teachers desk, a little nervous in case he had done something wrong. He couldn't remember if he had, he doubted he had but one wasn't called to talk after class for nothing.

Sensing Lincoln's tension Mrs Johnson placed her elbows on her desk and intertwined her hands together, giving off an aura of calmness. "Relax Lincoln you're not in trouble. "

"I'm not?" He could feel his chest lose a bit of the tightness that he had been holding onto but he didn't relax completely .

"No of course not, I don't see how my star pupil could be in trouble." Agnes smiled at the boy, calmly and friendly, doing her best to try to keep the young lad as calm as possible. "Besides, you've never gotten in trouble before and you haven't done anything wrong. "

Shame quickly filled Lincoln as he realised the truth behind his teachers words, his face lightly flushed red in embarrassment as he realised how foolish he was being.

"So... Why am I here?" Nervousness crept through his voice, he didn't want to come off as rude or impatient with his teacher but he couldn't help but want to get to the source of their conversation.

Mrs Johnson put on a look of concern. " Well, I just wanted to ask. Is everything alright at home? I've heard rumors about you Lincoln and while I don't believe them I wanted to ask you about it. "

Lincoln's chipped tooth bit into his bottom lip and his eyes darted away from his teacher, his back tensed and his legs locked in place. He knew this could have happened, there was always a possibility that an adult would pick up on his - not so - subtle changes.

He knew that he couldn't lie to his teacher but he couldn't divulge the truth, it would ruin everything. "Well..." His hands came round to his front, his fingers began to play with one another in nervousness. "Things at home are... Tense, we're working through a few issues and... It complicated."

Agnes' mouth pursed in thought, she was silent for a few moments before she spoke up again. "Well, while I can't pry that information out of you, do try to remember that us teachers are here to help you Lincoln. If you ever need to talk you can come to one of us or our councillor, our doors are always open. "

Lincoln's face twitched, that was what Lori had said to him before she had gone full agro mood on him. So he had a little bit of a hard time believing her but he gave Mrs Johnson the benefit of the doubt. She wasn't Lori.

"Is there anything else?"

Mrs Johnson went to open her mouth, but the two of them were interrupted by hasty knocking at the classroom door. Before the two of them could even turn towards the door it flew open quickly, revealing the hefty build of coach pacowski.

"Agnes when did..." His eyes darted to the white haired boy and that he could see the coach's face, Lincoln saw that he looked a little winded. "Ah, there you are Lincoln, you're late."

His brows furrowed and a look of utter confusion crossed over the boys face, he started up at his gym teacher like he had suddenly grown a second head.

"Late for what coach?"

"Practise Loud, you're late for practise." Pacowski shook his head at the boy. " You even missed yesterday's practise, had to do it with a man short. "

Wait what? Practise? Practise for what? He didn't remember signing up for anything, not that there was much he could do after school that he actually enjoyed.

He remembered looking at the schools after school activities but none of them had interested him. Most of them were sports or very specific clubs that were tailored towards certain social circles. Like the morticians club or the young zoologists.

"You don't mind if I take him do you agnes? The other boys are getting impatient and none of them want to be in uneven teams. "

Mrs Johnson looked between the two of them for a moment before opening one of her desks draws, pulling out several worksheets.

"Here's your extra assignments Lincoln, I know you were going to ask. Don't rush with these, you're already several weeks ahead of the class so you have time to take your time."

The boy took the papers out of her hand, there wasn't much and it looked very simple . He'd have it done by the morning if he put effort into it. Agnes motioned towards Lincoln, letting the coach know that he could have him.

"Alright loud, come on. We got work to do."

Lincoln spoke as he carefully put the papers into his backpack. "I never signed up for anything coach."

Pacowski brought his hand to his forehead and muttered what Lincoln thought was a ' Typical ' before placing a hand on Lincoln's shoulder and began to guide the boy out of the room. "You may not have but your parents did, they even told me you might try to weasel your way out of doing it."

His parents set this up? Were they really going to force him into another sport without asking him about it. Especially after what had happened last time, if he imagined hard enough he could still feel those punches hit him as the boys of the football team went down on him after he had scored against his own team accidentally.

He tensed when he realised that some of those same boys might even be here, at whatever practise he had been signed up for. Mistaking Lincoln's tension for intent to run coach Pacowski patted his shoulder.

"They've even told me to inform them if you try running, so I suggest you don't. I don't know what your parents will do, but you might."

Oh Lincoln knew. He knew what they were capable of when they wanted to do something but what could be worse then everything he had already gone through?

He did not want to know.

"What er... W-what sport coach?"

He dreaded the answer, he didn't want to know which sport he would be tormented with for who knows how long. He didn't want to be here right now, he wanted to go off with Clyde and do whatever he wanted. Not be here.

With a level of enthusiasm that only the coach could pull off when talking about dangerous sports he joyfully let out one word.

" Dodgeball. "

* * *

**A/N: I am so, so sorry about the long wait you lot.**

**I know a lot of you have been impatient for this chapter and I'm sorry it took so long. I've been having trouble finding the time to write this chapter and I've had to redo it multiple times as I felt it did not fit in when I read it back.**

**will try to get the next chapter out sooner but I make no promises on that front as I have a lot to do on my end.**

**I can say that the story is now set up to focus on a point I have wanted to do since the beginning of writing this story.**

**Hopefully I won't butcher it.**

**I have to ask though, what do all of you think of the quality of my chapters? Reading back I realise that I dip in quality as I try to write dialog. Is what I wrote good or can I improve?**

**As always tell me if you see any mistakes and I'll get round to fixing it.**


	13. Chapter 13

Lincoln threw himself to the side as a red rubber ball flew by where he had just been.

Sweat poured off his head and down his back, his legs felt sore and his lungs felt like they were on fire. He didn't have time to think on his situation as another dodgeball flew at him and he had to duck to avoid it. He could feel his turkey-tail be pushed against his head as the ball went right over him.

He scanned the floor for any of the red balls so he could either pass them onto his teammates or try to throw them at the opposing team. So far he had only managed to get three people out throughout the entire hour they had been playing.

Although to be fair he had been the primary target the entire time, he lost count of how many times he had been hit. Limbs, body and face. Add one of his teammate had said 'he made a good distraction '

Dodgeball was never one of his favorite sports... Hell, he didn't have a favourite sport, he hated all sports.

Just as his eyes landed on one of the balls another one heavily impacted his gut, causing him to double forwards slightly in pain from both the hit and a potential bruise being agitated.

"Loud you're out, get to the bench !" Pacowski's voice rumbled through the gymnasium, alerting all to the fact he was now removed from play.

He began to trudge his way over to the side lines, ready to sit down until the game was over. He ducked and weaved his way through the other kids as they played the game. His legs burned with each step, he knew he was going to have trouble walking home and he doubted anyone would pick him up anyway.

Just as he broke past the last student he felt a ball heavily impact the side of his face, the sheer force behind it caused him to lose his footing and collapse to the floor, his face hitting the floor with a dull thud.

Laughter erupted throughout the entire room as each of the kids mocked him. He had been right when he feared that several of the boys from the football tryouts would also be here, as they were some of the ones who were targeting only him.

Unlike he expected - and as had been happening through the entire game - the coach did not blow his whistle and punish the thrower for unsportsmanlike behaviour.

"Lincoln you alright?" He turned his head to the side slightly, stood just to his side with a look of worry on her face was Girl Jordan. She was wearing her red shirt and shorts that had the yellow and black stripes going down them. Her typical P.E clothes.

He groaned as he put his head on the cold floor, he couldn't hold himself up if he tried. "No."

Frowning Girl Jordan leaned forwards and grabbed Lincoln by the wrist, pulling his arm up he guided him to stand next to her before putting his arm around her shoulder to help the boy to walk towards the benches. Unfortunately as they were walking she was hit in the back by one of the balls, she ignored it.

When the two of them managed to get to the bench, girl Jordan sat Lincoln in the corner before pulling a loose chair that had been left in the gym for weeks now and placed it in front of Lincoln before seating herself in it. By doing this she was blocking everybody off from the white haired kid, giving him time to recover his breath before he had to get back into the game.

She looked him over, wearing the same P.E clothes just like her - and everyone else in the room - and she could see several bruises forming on his arms and legs, the side of his face was beginning to darken and it looked like his eye was going to start swelling. It wouldn't be bad but noticeable, especially if it bruised up as well.

His eyes said something else as well, defeat.

Now she wasn't one of Lincoln's greatest friends but she would easily admit that she was one of his friends, the two of them almost never hung out, what with their different lifestyles. That look of defeat concerned her, especially if there was any truth to the rumors about him.

She personally preferred to hear directly from the source - in this case Lincoln himself - but she wasn't sure if Lincoln would answer her. So she focused on him, he looked utterly exhausted. Beaten down both physically and mentally.

Tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, she adjusted her sitting posture so she could block the rest of the gym from view of the white haired boy.

"Lincoln." She spoke calmly, carefully. The rumors around Lincoln said that the boy was ready to explode, to unleash an unseen rage but as the dodgeball loving girl looked at him, she couldn't believe the rumors. He seemed far too... Passive in the moment. "You doing alright?"

The white haired child nodded, his breathing slowly leveling out. He didn't make eye contact however and moved his head to face the floor.

There was something about seeing the normally upbeat boy being so down that rubbed Jordan the wrong way. Sure his behaviour had been a bit... Off lately but this looked like he was at his worst.

"Think you need to see the nurse?"

The white haired boy shrugged lightly, trying not to agitate any sore spots. "I just want to go home."

Home was more preferable then being here, at home he wasn't being beaten down. He thought he would have gotten angry with each hit, what with his flaring emotions but it wasn't the case. Each hit dragged him further down into a pit of sadness.

He realised midway through the game that his parents didn't like him being himself, they didn't like the comic book reading, video game playing, sci-fi movie loving boy who also had a small like towards cooking... And drawing.

They didn't want him being like that, they wanted him to be like Lynn, Like Lori, Like Lana, they didn't want him to be Lincoln. They wanted a boy that they could be proud of, a boy they could show off against his talented sisters, they wanted to brag about him... To make him into something he wasn't.

And it hurt to know that you were seen as nothing more then an achievement to flounder.

Girl Jordan frowned slightly, seeing the sadness in his eyes magnify as he seemed lost in thought.

"You can, I'm pretty sure..."

She was interrupted by coach Pacowski blowing on his whistle, gaining everyone's attention.

"Alright, pack up and go change! Practice is over." Each of the students stopped mid-game, those close to -or holding - dodgeballs collected them and deposited them in the supply closet before making off for the changing rooms.

"...that is about to happen."

Despite being told what could be considered the best news possible at the moment, Lincoln did not seem happy about it. No, he looked even more upset by it and it got her a moment later as to why. The changing rooms, all of the boys -especially those who targeted Lincoln personally - would be there right now and there was no way she could help once he went past the door.

"Jordan, you coming?"

She turned back to the owner of the voice, stood behind her was one of her friends, Katherine or Kat as everyone else called her. The black haired girl looked between the two of them before narrowing her eyes at the white haired boy, Kat held a little resentment for the Loud boy, as it was his advice that caused Zach to burn off her hair braids back during the school fair.

"Yeah... Uh, actually can you go get my bag? I'll get changed later." Kat raised an eyebrow, her dark raven long hair swishing slightly as she turned her head.

" Sure but don't be too long, my mom won't wait forever. "

She gave a nod to her raven haired friend before turning back to the white haired boy. Silently she offered her hand to help him up. She had to wait several moments before he relented and accepted her help.

Using her as a crutch the two of them slowly hobbled their way out of the gymnasium. Jordan wasn't sure what she was going to do for Lincoln beyond this point, she most defiantly couldn't go into the boys changing room, that was just... Eww.

She's didn't want to even imagine how dirty it could have been, boys were often dirty and smelly.

However, it seemed someone else had thought the same thing as her and done something to help.

Stood just outside the doors to the changing room was Chandler, at his feet was Lincoln's two bags. His backpack and P.E bag.

"There you are Larry. Got these for you." His foot gently tapped against the worn P.E bag, it moving ever so slightly from the momentum.

"It's Lincoln." It came out as nothing but a whisper, one So quite that Jordan was sure she was the only one who heard him.

She squinted at the red haired boy, doubt and suspicion growing inside her. Chandler never did nice things for anybody, not even the people he pretended to call friends and especially not for Lincoln or anyone classified as a 'nerd'.

For him to have done this... There had to be an angle to his actions, something for him to gain.

Lincoln must have been just as stumped because the snow haired child simply couldn't say anything else.

"So," She spoke to fill in the silence that had persisted for several seconds. "What's the catch?"

Chandler turned his head to look at her, a passive and uncaring look on his face. He rose a single eyebrow at her, after a moment he caught on to what she was implying.

"Nothing." Just like that he leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms before looking back at Lincoln . He looked up and down his body to observe the bruises that were present and forming.

Not quite satisfied with his answer, girl Jordan asked a more direct question.

"What do you gain out of this Chandler?"

Without missing a beat or taking his eyes off Lincoln he answered her. " Nothing. " there was a hint of finality in his voice, something that said there was nothing more to be said to answer the question.

She went to open her mouth to call him out on his... Less then generous personality but he beat her to it.

"However, by doing this." He gestured to the bags. " The boys in there. " he pointed his thumb to the wall behind him. "Don't jump snowflake once he enters the room."

Both of their eyes widened at that, Chandler continued before either could say anything though.

" He doesn't get jumped, no-one gets detention. As all of us would get it cause everyone would deny doing it. " Chandler pushed himself off the wall and began to walk his way away from the changing rooms. Not saying another word or looking at either of them.

Deciding to take Chandler's words as truth, for now, they grabbed Lincoln's bags and hobbled as quickly as they could out to the front of school.

Like Lincoln had expected, vanzilla was nowhere in sight and he really didn't want to wait around any longer in case those boys came out before the oversized van arrived.

"Need a ride Lincoln?"

Girl Jordan gestured to where Kat was standing, leaning against a red four seater car. Lincoln could never be bothered to remember makes and models of cars. Sci-fi spaceships yes, real cars no.

"I-If it's not a problem." He could feel Jordan give him a gentle squeeze around the shoulders, something that flared a little pain in them.

"Please, Kat's mom it super nice, can't really say no to a good cause."

Two minutes later and a short explanation of what had happened and Lincoln was granted access to the front seat. He was secretly cautious about being given a bad seat but realised that this wasn't vanzilla and everyone but their family respected their cars.

During the time it took girl Jordan to talk to Kat's mother, Lincoln checked his phone and found several texts from both Clyde and Ronnie apologising about not being there, principle Huggins had threatened them with detention for loitering in school grounds outside of school hours.

"Where to sweety?" He wanted to protest the use of that nickname but bit his tongue, he was being given a free ride. He's might as well use his manners.

"1216 Franklin Avenue ma'am. Thank you for doing this." And he really was grateful, he doubted he would have been able to walk home on his own in his current state.

"Not a problem young man, you're quite welcome."

Lincoln could hear Kat grumble something about being too nice but he ignored it.

* * *

Lincoln waved back towards the car as Girl Jordan and Kat's mother waved to him. Kat herself was halfway through climbing from the back up to the front as he did so.

He turned back around as the car started to drive away, now facing his home he began to continue his trek over the path and towards the front door. Each step left a burn in his legs and his stomach felt sore with each small movement of his torso.

He knew he owed Girl Jordan and Kat something nice, as a way to thank them but he knew he could sit on that for a short while. Besides, what could he - Lincoln Loud - offer to two of the most 'well off' students in his year that they couldn't just buy themselves?

Still, it was the thought that counted. Well there was that at least.

Putting his hand on the handle he snapped out of his thoughts, just beyond the door was everyone who was currently in the house. He would have stayed out but he was in no physical state to do anything beyond collapse in his bed as he currently was. Choosing to simple get it over with he pushed the door open, the noise of the house slapped him in the face and he was reminded as to why they were called the loud house.

Stepping in he closed the door behind him, he took note of Luan in the dining room as she went through school books and scrap paper. He could hear small feet run around upstairs but couldn't figure out who it was exactly and just from the corner of his vision he could see Leni and Lily sitting on the couch watching dessert storm.

The little tot was more interested in the brightly decorated treats then what they were or who would win the competition. A part of him yearned for Lily to be with him, a small piece of him wanted to hold Lily in a comforting hug so he could try and alleviate his negative emotions with something positive but he didn't want to pull her away from what she was doing.

Taking slow steps towards the stairs he dragged his bags behind him, getting annoyed with the weight of them he dropped his P.E bag where he was before trying to get his way up the stairs.

He hadn't put one foot onto the stairs before he saw Lynn Sr. round the corner and peer out of the kitchen and look through the living room and at the stairs where Lincoln was standing.

Unbeknownst to the father of eleven - technically ten - he couldn't see the damaged side of Lincoln's face due to the positions they were both standing in. A small, slightly proud, smile grew on the elder males face as he saw his son look exhausted from - What he presumed was - a good workout playing sports.

"Hey future superstar, how was practice? "

At first Lincoln could feel a small flame of anger grow in his gut at seeing the one who he was supposed to call his father. However, that flame was quickly snuffed out when Lynn Sr.'s words registered in his ears. 'Future Superstar', a nod to the idea that Lincoln would - or was expected to - take up sports with the same ferociousness that Lynn Jr. did.

A stark and blunt reminder that Lincoln - as his own person - was not good enough for his parents.

He didn't have much fight in him at this point and his brain was still a little rattled from Chandler's actions but he knew he could do one thing. He turned to face his father and he could immediately see the joy being ripped away from him as he saw Lincoln's bruised and swollen face.

He regarded Sr. with an unimpressed look that spoke volumes about what he was thinking before turning and going up the stairs without a word.

With each step he could feel his legs burn and twitch, ready to give out under him before he wanted them to. He didn't listen as the elder male tried to tell him that he would inform him when dinner was ready, he definitely didn't listen to anyone else that he passed in the hallway before reaching his room.

Once passed into the threshold of his room he slammed the door behind him and dropped his bag into the floor without a care as to where it went. Without a second thought he dropped himself down onto the mattress, not bothering to get changed out of his P.E kit. His normal clothes were in his P.E bag.

With what little strength he had left he pulled as many of the blankets as he could around him, trying to cocoon himself within them.

He held on for five minutes...

Five minutes was all it took for the first tears to fall and now that they had started they wouldn't stop, no matter what he tried nothing stopped them, so he simply resigned to the fact that yes... He was crying.

It was the first time he had cried ever since the start of this whole ordeal, he wasn't sure how much longer he could have gone if this didn't happen.

However, he did not cry loudly. He did so silently, with nothing more than a slightly ragged breathing to accent how he felt. There hadn't been many times where he cried in solitude without someone else with him to comfort him, all the other times had been openly, around the girls and when he was truly upset about something.

Instinctively his hand reached out his little mound of blankets and reached for the table, feeling something soft he grasped it and pulled it closer to him. Stuffing Bun-Bun on his chest with his arm trapping it there in the form of a hug, trying to use his lifelong friend as a form of comfort.

He stayed there without any intention of moving what so ever, not even when dinner would be served.

After a long time he did here his father call to everyone for dinner, he heard the footsteps of each of his sisters as they went downstairs. He stayed where he was, not quite ready to leave the confines of his bed anytime soon. He did NOT want anyone seeing him with tear stained cheeks and red puffy - and slightly swollen - eyes. Despite being told numerous times by the elder three girls that it was normal for people -regardless of gender - to cry when they were emotionally overwhelmed, he did not want to garner pity from anyone.

Additionally, he doubted his legs would have moved an inch if he even tried to move them. So he resigned to simply stay in bed until he could move again, uncaring if he went hungry or thirsty.

Time passed by in a blur as Lincoln laid there thoughtlessly, not really paying attention to anything other than his ragged breath. It was possible that they thought he had fallen asleep after being so exhausted and a part of him agreed with that. He wanted to sleep off his pain and negative mood but the idea that he wasn't what his parents wanted out of a boy - their only son - kept him from even trying to close his eyes.

It came as a surprise to him when the door to his room began to open, the broken latch scrapping against the damaged door frame once more. Small footsteps patted on the carpeted floor carefully, as if their was something dangerous within the same room.

"Go away." His voice was muffled by the many blankets that covered him but he was sure whoever was in his room had heard him.

"Lincoln?"

He froze, he knew exactly who the young but gruff voice belonged to... Lana. He didn't want to upset the younger girls but he also didn't want to be seen in such a state. So he did the only thing he could think of in that moment.

"I said go away Lana." He spoke louder, but didn't shout, just loud enough that his voice wouldn't be as muffled or distorted too heavily.

"Dad wants you to..." At the mention of her father Lincoln ripped the blankets off his head, careful not to let Lana see his tear stained face.

He didn't want to but he had to do what he did next.

" I SAID GO AWAY LANA! " He laid there silently, a fresh set of tears beginning to pool out of his eyes. He didn't want to shout at her, it wasn't right but he didn't want anyone knowing that he had been crying.

A few moments passed in silence, Lincoln doing his best to not lose more control over himself and hoping to not have to shout at her again.

The quiet sniffle that escaped from her was enough to drag Lincoln's heart down his chest and he instantly felt horrible about what he had done.

Without a word he heard Lana turn and run out of his room, his door slamming shut as she left. Left alone he began to silently weep harder, tears running down his face like a river once more.

* * *

Deep within the vents of the house, tucked away from as many rooms as possible, was Lucy. The resident goth had been there ever since returning from school, none had noticed her disappear and none had bothered to try to look for her.

Not like they ever did that anyway.

Aside from leaving to eat her dinner she had not left the vents at all, as was proved by the layer of dust that sat on top of her black clothes.

She was sat a dusty corner of the vents, several of her things were here as well. Like her poem book and several small voodoo dolls that suspiciously looked like people she didn't like, along with Lincoln's drawing.

Normally the young girl would be here to work on her poems in silence... In as much silence as one could get in this house anyway but she wasn't even looking at her poem book. Instead she was observing Lincoln's drawing, using the light from a toy candle that used batteries and light bulbs - her mother had forbidden the use of real ones for quite some time.

The small amount of light afforded to her was enough for her to see the picture that was drawn upon the scrunched and wrinkled piece of paper.

it showed the girls on one side, celebrating, cheering, gloating. Their trophies, medals, rewards and other signs of success in their hands as they all huddled around Lynn who was holding a new trophy. On the right was Lincoln, sat in his room with his knees pressed to his chest as he leaned on the closed door of his empty room. If it wasn't for the fact that the drawing was slightly smudged she might have been able to make out the facial expressions of himself.

I hurt to look at this picture, it really did and not in ways that Lucy liked. She was all for dark and dreary, spooky and horrifying but not this, not... She wasn't sure how to describe it.

Depressing was the first word that came to mind but She didn't want to use it. The word didn't fit correctly, it didn't suit Lincoln and it didn't match his current behaviour.

How many other drawings did he have? How many were like this one? Were they all this good? Or was there evidence of his drawing skills improving over time with each drawing he drew?... If any at all.

There was more to make out from the picture then anything else. Like her poems this drawing had a clear cut message but at the same time her poems sometimes had hidden meanings and messages, she suspected that his drawings also held another message but she couldn't see past the picture to look for it.

She needed someone else's opinion, someone else's point of view so she could make sense of this picture but who?

She needed someone who was going to look past the initial picture to see hidden messages, someone... Artistic, like Lincoln.

But who else in the family could be considered artistic? There was herself with her poems but that would be considered literature art, Luan often said pranking and comedy required an artistic view but Lucy doubted if that would help at all. When it came to the rest of her sisters, none of them really stood out as artistic.

Well except for...Luna.

Wouldn't her music be consider audio art? People who made music were considered artists after all but would it be enough?

"Sigh." She monotonously dragged out, her quiet voice slightly echoing throughout the vents.

What other choice did she have? Lynn?

She's almost let out a monotone 'Ha' at the thought, Lynn didn't care for anything other than sports and meatball subs. No, her only option was to go to Luna and hopefully find out something else from the picture.

Carefully the goth girl began to crawl her way through the vents, being careful not to make any noise. Her little hidden domain in the vents was actually located in a small wall space between Lincoln's room and the twins room, the last thing she wanted was Lincoln thinking she was spying on him.

When she approached a junction in the vents - that was simply three steps away - she looked down towards Lincoln's room. She couldn't see much other than the wall the vent was facing and from where she was she couldn't hear anything.

Moving on she passed over the twins room, taking a curious glance in she spotted Lana curled up in her bed. Several of her animals had joined her as she laid laid there. From where she was she could hear the quiet sniffles coming from the young Tomboy.

As much as Lucy wanted to help, she didn't have a clue as to how to, something like this was normally Lincoln's area of expertise. Ttruthfully, she didn't have a single clue as to what to do in a situation like this.

Funeral for a recently deceased pet? Sure. Not how to comfort someone who was sad, despite that being an undertone to every funeral ever.

Quietly she moved her way past the twins room, then past her own room, she didn't bother looking inside. It was her room, so why bother?

When she finally reached Luna's room she took a peak in through the vents grate, just to be sure she was in there. Luckily for her the purple rocker was indeed in her room, sat stop her beanbag quietly strumming away on one of her many guitars.

Carefully and - unintentionally - quietly, Lucy dropped her way into the room, Luan was not present at the time and she wasn't sure how long that would last.

Lucy only just realised that Luna actually had her eyes closed as she drummed away, the gentle tune flowing throughout the room.

Stepping closer Lucy stood in front of where Luna was sitting.

"Luna." that simple soft spoken word was all it took for Luna to suddenly spring up from her seat screaming a very girly scream. Her guitar held over her shoulder much like a club.

For a moment the two of them stared each other down, Lucy having not even flinched from Luna's reaction to her 'sudden appearance '.

"Jeez Luce, you know how to give a girl a heart attack. " The rocker paused for a moment to put down her axe before reseating herself on the beanbag. "What is it you want?"

Slowly Lucy pulled out the crumbled but of paper out of her pocket, she held it there but didn't make any move to hand it over. "I need your opinion on something, I'd ask someone else but I don't think any of them could help."

Luna eyes up the but of paper before trying to look Lucy in the eye, or where she thought the goths eyes were. "Need someone to critic your poem spooky? Not too sure how I can help."

Lucy's head tilted down slightly, her hand crumbling the paper more. She wasn't sure what to say but she knew she couldn't lie... So she spoke the truth.

"This is Lincoln's, I took it from the twins. I want you to look at and tell me what you see." She spoke as she handed the paper to Luna who began to slowly unfold it.

All was silent for a few moments as Luna scanned the picture, her eyes darting back and forth. When she spoke it came out in her British accent.

"Oh, bugger."

* * *

**A/ N: There you go another chapter for those of you who can afford to wait.**

**I'm sorry about delays but there is little I can do to speed up production time. One thing I want to say, in case people aren't aware, I upload when my chapter are complete and I'm satisfied with them, there is no update time table or guaranteed time for when I will update.**

**It's all down to how much free time I get each day and how long I can work on this without interruption. So to all the people who ask when the next update will be, stop doing it. I don't know the answer to your question.**

**Thank you for understanding.**


	14. Chapter 14

Luna sat on her beanbag dumbfounded, her eyes glancing over the drawing again and again. A drawing that Lincoln had supposed drawn himself.

There was so much that could be said about it, between it being dark and depressing, all the way to being an eye opener... And not just because of the quality but the messages it sent.

It showed how Lincoln felt; overshadowed, outnumbered, ignored and mistreated. When she voiced these points to Lucy the little goth had agreed with her completely, even being surprised by what the rocker was saying at points.

She couldn't believe what she was looking at, could it really be possible that Lincoln felt this way? That he felt so... Separate from everyone else that he truly believes that he was all the messages that his drawing sent?

The resident goth herself was sat on the floor, legs crossed as she kept her hands on her knees. Her hair covered her eyes but Luna could see the ever so slight downward drag on her lips.

Groaning Luna leaned back on her beanbag. "Spooky." She spoke aloud as she rested one arm over her eyes. " Please tell me this isn't happening... That this isn't real. " She really wanted to be wrong, for this to simply be a dream that she was having after she fell asleep sitting down.

She knew it wasn't, as the last few days had proved to her, this was simply another thing she had to acknowledge. One she didn't want to but knew she had to but how does one deal with a sibling who believed they were inferior? Much to her dissatisfaction Lucy answered her in a way she didn't want her to but knew she had to hear.

"I'm afraid all of this is real, Our brother is falling down a dark pit... Or we are only just realising that he has been there for a while."

Luna gave off a very dull sigh, what was she supposed to do now? She couldn't ignore this and she certainly had no way of dealing with it as Lincoln had zero intentions of talking to anyone.

But with this, she could at least piece together a bit of the thoughts that were running through the boys head and even make a little sense of his words from Monday morning. He said she needed to fix everything she had done to him - and by extension, so did everyone else - but what had she done that was bad it needed redeeming?

Other then allowing Lincoln to be locked outside of course. There were some small things that came to mind but they were incredibly minor; a small push, a little knock on the head, even accidentally knocking him down once or twice but it wasn't like she purposely hurt him. Unlike Lynn.

With a pang of guilt she realised that she had hurt him before, purposely too. Back when everyone thought there was money in the house she had used her amps to quite literally blast Lincoln into the wall so he wouldn't snoop in her room. Then five minutes later she was among the group of sisters who all tried to barge into his room for the same reason, talk about hypocritical.

There was one thing she knew she needed to do, she needed to tell her parents. To let them know about Lincoln's inner thoughts before they did something that could jeopardise how he currently felt, if they did something that could drag him down further then they could be in serious trouble.

Standing she made a move for the door.

"Where are you going?" She's flinched slightly as Lucy's voice, having almost forgot about her being there.

" I need to tell the rents about this. " She went to wave the bit of paper around before realising that she wasn't holding it, turning back to the beanbag she bent forwards before picking it up again.

Turning back she almost screamed when she saw Lucy standing in front of the door, silently and as still as a statue. "Jeez Luce, would ya quit trying to give me a heart attack?"

That was the third time in fifteen minutes that she had done it, it was beginning to get to her now.

"Only if you don't tell mom and dad."

At this Luna adopted a confused look, immediately questioning why she would ask such a thing internally.

"Why?"

Silence reigned between to the two of them for a minute, the tension becoming thick enough to cut with a knife.

"Sigh." Lucy's head dropped slightly, a visual cue that she was thinking hard on what to say next. Or at least how to word it. " It wouldn't be right to announce his secrets like that, they're secrets for a reason right? "

Secrets? What secrets? The only thing she was doing was informing her parents on what may have been Lincoln's inner thoughts and how he currently felt, what was wrong there?

When she voiced this to Lucy the small goth pointed out something she overlooked.

"If you show them the drawing they'll realise that he has taken up drawing recently... Or a long time ago. Tell me did he tell you that he draws?"

" Well... No. " Truthfully the thought of Lincoln not telling her about his pension for drawing didn't cross her mind till now but now that it had, she felt a little crushed. Did Lincoln not trust her enough to be in on the secret? Or was it something else?

Lucy proved to not be done with making her point as she spoke up again, her voice monotone as ever.

"Now tell me, has Lincoln purposely revealed a secret you told him? And what makes it right for you to do so?"

Luna collapsed down onto her beanbag. "Nothing makes it right." What other response was there? That she was an elder sister and was allowed to do as she pleased?

No, that didn't stick no matter which way you threw it, no matter what Lori said about having elder privileges. She leaned back on her beanbag, her head coming close to the floor with the way she was sitting... Or laying in this case. But she couldn't not tell their parents, that could cause more problems.

"I need to tell them Luce, it could get bad if I don't."

" I know. " Luna could hear her take a breath in. " just don't expose his artwork, tell them don't show them. "

Lucy was right, how many times had Lincoln kept a secret for all of them? How many were still ongoing? A lot more then they probably realised. Luna knew that Lincoln must have still remembered the time she accidentally told him she was going to be out till very late - like well into the early hours of the morning late - yet he still kept it a secret, even after she was busted.

She would have to word everything extremely carefully to ensure she didn't reveal the drawing but something bugged her, a small nagging feeling in her gut told her there was something missing.

"Luce..." She could hear the young goths clothes ripple with movement, even though she couldn't see it. "Why do you care so much about keeping this secret?"

Silence reigned between them once more, this time it dragged out a bit longer then before but the air wasn't as tense as before.

" Sigh. Lincoln has been keeping one of my biggest secrets to himself, despite going to great lengths to figure it out - unintentionally - he has gone to greater lengths to keep it a secret once more. "

Luna let out a sigh, yeah that sounded just like Lincoln. Looking out the window she saw the sun was beginning to set, if the rapidly changing sky was any indication.

* * *

With a bout of energy Lana opened her eyes, the plain white ceiling looked down at her plainly. Looking around her room she could make out each of the bits of furniture, toys and even animal cages. Some of which had some animals still making noise.

A quick glance to the window revealed it to be late, at least late enough for the moonlight to shine through her window. She slammed her head into her pillow with the grace of an elephant, what was she doing awake at this hour? She has never woken up at a time like this unless she had a bad dream.

Bad dreams that normally revolved around mud being banned or her pets having to go to different homes, even alien invasions and the occasional one involving monsters. This time however, she didn't feel like she had a bad dream, if anything she felt incredibly well rested... Alert even.

From her spot on her bed she could see Lola sleeping on her own bed, eye mask covering her face like usual. She never understood why she needed that, it wasn't that bright that it made it impossible to go to sleep yet it wasn't dark enough to not be able to see at all. The perfect level of light.

Once more she found herself questioning why she was awake, she wasn't hungry, she didn't have a bad dream and... Oh.

She could suddenly feel the intense pressure from her bladder, she needed to go... Now.

Throwing her covers off she made for the door quickly and quietly, trying her hardest to not wake Lola up. She could hear some of her reptiles move around a bit more vigorously as they saw her. "Mommy will be back soon babies, gotta go leak."

Grabbing hold of the handle she quietly turned it before making off for the bathroom as quietly as possible, it didn't help as she practically stomped down the hallway... But hey, when your bladders full what else are you gonna do?

She was glad that nobody else was in there at the moment, despite how unlikely that was. After a few minutes she had finished her business and washed her hands, as she left she rubbed her hands down her shirt that she usually slept in... Odd, when did she get changed?

Must have been one of the elder girls, they had taken off her other clothes while she slept before.

She looked up to see where she was going, stopping in her tracks when she saw something out of place... Lincoln's door was open, the light from the room shined out into the hallway illuminating half the hallway in its glow. Had that been open this whole time? Or had it happened just after she went in the bathroom?

If his door was open didn't that mean he wasn't in there? Did he need to use the bathroom too? If so, where was he? She wanted to ignore it, to just leave it be and Mark it off as him simply going to get a drink or midnight snack. But as she got close to her room she found that she didn't have the strength to push the door open any more then it was already.

As if being pulled by some invisible force she found her feet bringing her closer to Lincoln's room, her feet not making a single sound against the carpeted floor. She stopped just outside the frame of his door, nervous that he could appear behind her at any moment or come out of his room suddenly.

Some part of her wanted to know something... What she didn't know but her body was curious to understand something. Soon she couldn't resist and slowly began to peer into his room, despite knowing that this could end horribly wrong.

She closed her eyes just before turning her head around the side of the door, she sat there for a moment before gaining the courage to open one eye slightly. Nothing, no Lincoln.

Opening both of her eyes she stepped into the small room, she was now certain that Lincoln wasn't in his room as the bed - or what counted as a bed in this case - was flat, despite the many blankets that laid on top of it.

A small sweep of the room revealed that it was almost like it had been when she saw it earlier in the day... Almost. Some of the toys had been scattered over the table and some of his clothes were strewn haphazardly around the room, his bag was missing too.

She could feel a bitter wind rip through her frame, making her shiver. Looking up she saw that his window was open, that was where the wind was coming from. Deciding to retreat to her room for warmth she turned and left, yet the cold followed her wherever she went.

She almost reached her door when she heard a loud bang come from downstairs. The noise made her jump in fright and she let out a girly yelp. Her first thought was that someone had simply hit something in the dark... She wanted to leave it at that but another part of her suspected that maybe... Just maybe, someone had broken into their home.

Their father had been making a big deal out of home security lately after all, her first thought had been to get one of the elder siblings to deal with the situation but her thoughts had moved onto Lincoln. What if he was down there hiding from a burglar or worse! He had been caught by one and was being forced to wear make up. She would hate for that to happen to her.

Carefully she crept towards the stairs, looking down she couldn't see anything beyond the normal and she couldn't hear anything either. Slowly she went down each step individually, being extra careful to not let the steps creak under her weight. By some miracle not a single step made a noise as she descended down them.

As she reached the bottom she could pick up the sounds of muttering and shuffling, looking to the side she could see a lone figure crouched in the living room. Darkness surrounded the individual like a cloak, the light unable to pierce through to unveil the mysterious person.

She hasn't made it three steps before the figure stood abruptly, startling her into yelping. Perhaps this was a very bad idea. The figure didn't bother to turn her way as -who was now identified as a he - spoke.

"Lana... Why are you here?" The girl shivered as he spoke, as if a strong gust of wind had been blown down her neck.

The voice was recognizable, it was Lincoln who was shrouded in darkness, but the tone of his voice sent chills down her spine. He sounded angry, annoyed, frustrated and irritated.

As if simply knowing who was before her was enough to unveil the darkness, she could suddenly make out Lincoln's form perfectly. From his white hair to his orange polo shirt and blue jeans.

She didn't say anything, not even when Lincoln began to force some things into his bag. What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do? Stealing herself she took in a deep breath, feeling her lungs struggle to bring in the air.

"Lincoln what are..." He never got to finish her sentence before Lincoln quickly spun around, a glare etched into his face as he looked Lana in the eyes.

" Don't... Don't talk to me, you lost the right to speak to me. "

What? But... when? How?

Her mind was so frazzled by those words that she couldn't stop herself from sputtering out a response.

"What do you mean?" She instantly clamped her mouth shut, fearing what may happen now that she tried speaking to him.

She saw his glare harden further, a hint of real anger flash before his eyes as he stared her down. In this moment she felt half her normal size as Lincoln looked to be double his own, she couldn't stop herself from beginning to shake like a leaf caught in a breeze.

Lincoln's hands shook as they clenched into fists. "I said don't talk to me Lana." He spoke through clenched teeth, the words coming out slightly distorted . "You lost your chance when you kicked me out the house, when you boarded up my room, when you sold my furniture and especially after all of you ignored me. "

Lana watched as Lincoln swung around and ripped his bag off the table, closing it before he shoved it onto his back. "You take me for granted and then when I stop doing everything for you, you throw a fit about it. " he turned back to her. "Well no more, I'm done being a joke in this house, always being given the short straw and being the butt of every joke."

Lana could have sworn she saw steam come out of Lincoln's nose as he breathed out through it. If this went on she would probably be put in danger, much to her surprise Lincoln stormed right past her, not giving her a single glance as he continued .

"Maybe now you'll all realise how important I really was to you." With that he ripped the door open, uncaring to any noise he was making and stepped out into the inky blackness that laid directly beyond the door.

" Lincoln wait! " she had already found herself running towards the door after his frame had disappeared into the darkness but when she drew close to the door she stopped.

What looked to be an impenetrable wall of black inky goo was swirling within the door frame itself, how did that get there?

"Lincoln?" It came out weak and quiet but may as well as been as loud as one of Lisa's explosions within the silence that now enveloped her.

Nothing happened.

She looked behind her, hoping to see something... Anything that would help her but What laid behind her was surprising.

Nothing but inky darkness laid before her, a small circle of the floor laid before her feet but she couldn't move, the circle was too small to place even one step in any direction. The rest of the house was gone in the darkness, lost forever to the inky goo.

Alone.

Afraid.

Powerless.

Lost.

In the midst of the darkness she had slumped to her knees, hot tears streamed down her face as she felt a crushing weight settle on her chest. What was she to do? Where was Lincoln? She wanted... No needed him right now. He would be able to help her out of this.

A pair of feet suddenly stood in front of her, seemingly expanding the circle she sat upon. Looking up she saw the face of her brother looked down at her with a blank expression. One of his hands rested on her shoulder but she felt no warmth from the touch, only a slight weight.

His grip suddenly tightened, holding her in place and I'm the quietest whisper she had ever heard he spoke.

"I hate you."

Without warning she was pushed off her little circle, plummeting into the inky void with a silent scream.

* * *

Lana shot up from her bed covered in sweat, she could feel hot tears drench her cheeks uncontrollably. Her breathing was erratic and uncontrolled, her stomach rolled and flipped as she tried to control herself.

Her mind reeled from her dream... No nightmare.

That scared her. It petrified her to her very core and she wasn't sure how to deal with it.

A quick look to the window revealed it was late out, a dull moonlight was coming through the window, scarcely illuminating the room. A look over to Lola revealed the princess to be sleeping peacefully, eye mask in place.

A sense of dread filled her as she remembered more details of her nightmare,

... Lincoln.

He ran away, into the darkness.

Was he still here now?

Without thinking or caring about noise she pulled herself out of her bed and made a hasty run to the door. Pulling the door with all the force of an active six year old, she nearly slammed the door into the wall if it wasn't for a pile of stuffed toys.

She ran towards the end of the hallway, uncaring if she woke anyone up. She had to see, she had to know. practically slamming into Lincoln's door she entered the room, legs shaking from moving so suddenly.

There laying on his bed was Lincoln, curled up under his many blankets, he was facing the wall and away from her. She could feel herself calm down considerably at seeing her brother... Her real brother within reach, a very huggable reach.

Ignoring all possible consequences she leaped into the bed rummaging around in the blankets until she could wrap her arms around Lincoln in a strong hug, intending to never let go again. Burying her head into his torso she could feel his shirt soak up her tears as they continued to steam out her eyes like a river, her actions must have stirred the boy as he shifted.

"Lana?" She could feel one of his hands reach up to her face and run along her cheek, picking up tears as it went. She nodded into his chest, spreading more tears over his top.

She could feel him shift under her and she held on tighter, unwilling to let him go.

Eventually she found herself enveloped into a hug, Lincoln's arms wrapped around her in a comforting embrace. She could feel him place his face next to her own, quietly he whispered into her ear.

"What's wrong? "

Those two words were enough to make her chock up a sob, not because he asked but because of the way he spoke, calmly, nicely, with care and concern. She could only dig her face into his collar bone, her words failed her when she did try to talk and all that came out was more sobs and quiet cries.

"It's ok, you're safe... Nothing bad is going to happen to you." She could feel his hand rub soothing circles over her back, trying to calm her down. It helped a little as she tried to stop her sobs from escaping her.

The two stayed like that for a while, neither saying anything as she calmed down. For Lincoln this was a very surreal experience, waking up to one of his sisters crying into his chest and giving him a death grip of a hug. However, he couldn't ignore his brotherly instincts when he saw the state that she was in, hot tears, shaky breath and an unbreakable iron grip told him that she was scared, frightened even.

He didn't know what had caused her to be like this suddenly and she didn't seem to be in a state to be able to talk about it, he doubted she ever would. So he resorted to the only thing he could do, he held her, comforted her and made her feel safe. He may have been bitter about everything that has happened to him but He wasn't heartless, he couldn't turn away from an upset sister.

It was one of the reasons why he wanted solitude, so he wouldn't be exposed to things like this that would make him crumble. He knew, deep down, that she wasn't going to leave his room tonight... Nothing would make her do so.

"You wanna stay here tonight?" He could feel her her nod against his chest and with the movement he could feel his - Now wet - top stick to his chest but he didn't care about that.

Wrapping his arms around her he pulled her up higher, letting her head rest on one of the pillows. Reaching into the sheets he pulled out his stuffed rabbit Bun-Bun before slowly placing it in Lana's grasp, she would need him more than he did. He didn't let up until she had accepted the stuffed toy into her arms and then he wrapped his arms around her.

He wouldn't admit it openly but it was nice to be able to hold onto one of his younger siblings again -sans Lily of course - in their time of need. Over the next few minutes he could feel Lana begin to relax, her breathing steadied out and her tears finally stopped coming. Her grip on him did not wane as she began to relax and he did not fight against it, he even gave her a few affectionate squeezes whenever her breath rocketed suddenly.

Eventually the two of them fell asleep in each other's arms, the blankets having been pulled over them by Lincoln, his plush rabbit stayed locked in Lana's grip as she slept. Throughout all of this Lincoln had been ignoring the pain his limbs had been in from his dodgeball practice session and in this moment he didn't care about the pain, all he cares about was that he was needed again... If only for tonight.

* * *

When Lincoln woke up the next morning he struggled to look behind him at his alarm clock, wishing he didn't have to get up this early today for the umpteenth time these past two weeks.

Looking down next to him he spotted Lana in his arms, dried tears tracks present on her cheeks and Bun-Bun in her arms. He hoped that whatever had plagued her last night was over now, or at least subsided enough to not be a common reoccurring problem.

He wanted to get to the bottom of this but that meant waiting till she woke up and he didn't want to be here when everyone else woke up. He was going to kick himself for this later.

Slowly he worked his arms away from Lana, doing his best to not to wake her up this early. Grabbing his notepad he wrote a quick note before folding it and leaving it on his alarm clock, in the way of the snooze button.

Adjusting the clock he set the alarm for when Lana normally woke up, with this done he slowly left his bed, feeling his legs flare up in pain, still sore from yesterday.

He didn't want to leave her but he had to, for the sake of not being caught up in a tide of his sisters. Leaning down he hovered his face above her forehead before placing a little kiss atop her head.

"Love you Lana."

Unknowingly to the boy, Lana had sported a sleepy smile as he limped out the room.

* * *

**A/N: What was that? Was that your heart shattering to a thousand pieces? Cause mine sure did. Yeah I did that, I just did that to you.**

**This is a scene I have wanted to do ever since starting this story but couldn't because I hadn't set everything up until now.**

**so tell me, how good was the dream sequence? I worked hard to keep it subtle until the very end of it.**

**Yes this chapter is shorter unfortunately but given how quickly it came out I think that's a fair trade off.**

** Will fix any mistakes tomorrow.**

**Edit: fixed up a small mistake at the end. Edit: fixed all mistakes.**


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER, PLEASE MADE SURE TO READ IT THOROUGHLY.**

**THANK YOU.**

* * *

The day had progressed relatively normally as far as Lincoln was concerned, aside from the odd wake up and people asking about his new bruises nothing else changed.

A small part of him had wanted to talk to Chandler to ask him why he had been nice yesterday... or at least, self centered enough to do something for him for his own benefit. However, he couldn't find the red haired boy anywhere at the moment, that, and he had something a little more important to do right now.

Currently he was sat in the library, his hands working away tirelessly as they drew away in his notebook. It was currently lunch, he would be off getting something to eat but he needed a little bit of silence today... That and he was waiting for Lana.

He knew leaving that morning would have upset Lana, given how tightly she had held onto him last night. The note he had left her told her that if she wanted to talk he would be in the library at lunch today or she could talk to him when he was home after school. He was in no state to be going out unfortunately, so he would have to return home to not agitated his injuries. Luckily dodgeball practice was on Mondays and Tuesdays only.

Still, it did not stop him from using up his time to draw another new drawing, he had finished his last one recently and he was... Annoyed at what he had drawn. So he opted to ignore it and move onto another drawing, this time actually trying to focus on it so he knew what he was drawing instead of zoning out while doing it.

This had come with the issue of wondering what he should draw. Unlike previously where he had been simply drawing without knowing what would be the end result.

He had - in fact - decided on what to draw, an Ace-Savvy version of himself. Why not right? He loved Ace, he loved drawing, so why not combine the two?

So far the drawing was in its early stages, nothing more then outlines and traces that detailed a body and a rough pose. His drawing stood on the far left of the page, hardly covering a fifth of it on its own, giving him plenty of room to add other things on the other side of the page. Which he would likely do after he finished drawing himself.

He was contemplating on adding Clyde as one-eye'd Jack but decided to hold back on drawing more characters until he finished the first one. It wasn't that he didn't want to draw Clyde, he just didn't want to over complicate the drawing and make it feel like a meaningless task.

His eyes glanced up at seeing the library door opening, his eyes catching sight of a very familiar red hat. With extreme care he stealthily closed his book before covering it with a sci-fi book he had left close to it, on the off chance that she tried to peak at his drawing.

When the six year old caught sight of him, his head deep in a book, she broke out in a quick sprint towards him, attracting the attention of several people who after a second of realising what was happening turned away.

Lincoln grunted when Lana collided into his side, making multiple bruises and sore spots flair in pain for a short moment. He could feel her arms wrap around him and while he appreciated the gesture, now wasn't the time to be all mushy.

"Hey Lana."

He felt her squeeze him slightly, as if reaffirming that he was there, before letting go and looking up at him.

"Why'd you leave early this morning?"

" I always leave early now Lana, what's different today? "

He watched as Lana's face scrunched up into a small pout, something not commonly seen on the six year old, her head dipped down towards the floor and her breathing seemed to begin to shake before she took a deep breath and slowly released it.

"I just thought..." She spoke shyly, kicking one of her feet behind her on the floor. " That you would be there this morning, especially after what happened last night. "

Lincoln could see the pain in her eyes, lingering fear from whatever had spooked her so horribly the night before surfacing up once more. He let out a sigh as he placed a hand on her shoulder gently rubbing it to try to help sooth her.

"I know, I know. But I couldn't, I just... Can't be around everyone at once anymore and I can't wait around for the morning rush, nor can I deal with it anymore."

"Why not? It's the same thing every morning, so we're all used to it... Right?"

Lincoln sighed, bringing his free hand to rub the spot between his eyebrows. How was he going to explain this properly? He had to do it in a way that wouldn't upset her and he had to make sure she walked away from this conversation without feeling at blame for everything.

"That's the point Lana, it's always the same." He took a moment to remove his hand from her shoulder, subconsciously wiping it down his jeans on reflex. " Every morning we all rush to use the bathroom, all of you girls argue over who uses it first... Especially the older ones, most days I get pushed to the back of the queue. "

He took a breath, carefully calming himself down so he wouldn't go on a tirade.

"Does that sound fair on me?" Despite it being rhetorical he saw Lana shake her head at him, no she didn't think it was fair . "Every morning I've got to get Lily dressed and we all know she hates clothes, then you and Lola fight... Always." He held up a hand to keep her from talking, he would let her have her say when he was done. " Then there's Luan's pranks, every single morning I've got to look for them. Then Lynn is always playing her 'sports' in the morning and being a general nuisance, Lori's is far too busy on her phone to help and Leni is... Leni. "

He had to fight off a small smile when he saw Lana stifle a laugh... Look at them, acting like real siblings should, having a real conversation like nothing was wrong. It was almost enough to drag Lincoln back down again... Almost. It hurt to know he couldn't simple have this freely, that he needed to entice this out of his sisters.

"Then there's Lisa's experiments and Lucy... Well Lucy's not too bad but you see my point right? It's like that everyday and I'm the one who has to keep everything calm so everyone can get ready on time. You understand right Lana?"

The young animal lover nodded her head, her eyes lacking the joy they held and radiated understanding. As Lincoln looked into her eyes, he could see the cogs turning in her head as she pieced together each thing he said. Silence reigned between the two of them for a short while until Lana snapped out of her thoughts.

"It... Doesn't sound easy."

Like that Lana looked away, trying to distract herself by looking at the books but the two of them were near the sci-fi section and none of it really interested her. Give her any book on animals and she'll read it for days on end but sci-fi bored her to no end.

Lincoln's hand ghosted over the books on the table and he discretely tried to use his 'cover book' to hide his artwork better, constantly keeping Lana in the corner of his vision as he did so.

"Do you hate me?"

The sudden question caused Lincoln's arm to dart out and almost sent he book soaring across the Library, instead it quickly slid across the table for a short moment before Lincoln slammed his hand down on the book to prevent it from going anywhere. In a split second he had replaced it back to were it should have been, noisily too before turning back to Lana.

"What!" It seemed the banging and unintentional shout had spooked Lana as she had jumped back a few steps while holding her arms to her chest. Seemingly in fright .

A loud 'Shhh' echoed around the room and instantly Lincoln could feel himself under an intense gaze, instead of try finding it he took one big long breath to calm himself down before fixing Lana with a concerned look. Slowly he got off his chair before lowering himself to a knee, not moving any closer to the frightened six year old. The two of them were now at the same height .

"Lana... No... I don't hate you." Which was true, he didn't hate her, maybe some of the other sisters but between the two of them there was very little that Lana had done wrong to him. Sure there were - in fact - some things she had done but it was extremely minor compared to most sisters.

Slowly Lana dipped her head down, like a dog who was afraid of being told off from their owner after they had been caught doing something bad. "But why did you... You know... Hide away."

Truthfully, Lincoln had asked himself the same thing. Why didn't he just confront everyone after they returned from the beach? or even on the day he had been let back in? It would have made it easier to get his point across, to rip the thorn out before his skin healed over the wound but that was the thing about hindsight, it only told you how you should have done things long after your chance to do them had passed, it was why it made a horrible super power.

"Because, I was... Bitter, upset, angry and... I felt betrayed Lana, I mean..." He paused, looking around the library to make sure no-one was in earshot. He motioned for Lana to move closer and after a moment's hesitation she moved right in front of him. He spoke on a whisper quiet enough for just her to hear. "I was locked out of the house for two nights Lana, cause all of you thought I was bad luck, all my furniture is gone and you all refused to let me join you for the movies cause of it."

He took a deep breath, struggling to keep his tears at bay as they threatened to resurface again. Slowly he moved a stray strand of hair off of Lana's face before planting his palm against her cheek.

"How do you think that made me feel Lana? It hurt... All of you hurt me and in those first few days I was back in it all sunk in, I was a mess in my room, you didn't see it cause I hid it when you came in." Slowly he shook his head as he lowered his hand, he didn't want to do what he was going to do next but it couldn't go unsaid .

"It feels like none of you see me as your brother and more as a personal butler to help make things easier for you, I feel underappreciated, you saw Lola last week. She came to me because I wasn't there to help her freely anymore and was trying to get me back under her thumb, not that it worked. "

"That's not true!" Lana about was quickly interrupted by a loud 'Shhh' causing the two of them to flinch, one more loud noise and they were out for the day. The two of them made a be quite gesture by putting their fingers to their lips before each nodded at the other.

Lana moved closer, speaking in just a whisper. "Lincoln you're my big cool brother and nothing is going to change that ever, I know everyone asks a lot of you but that's cause there's only one of you and if we don't ask for you we don't get to spend time with you."

He nodded, he understood that completely. "I know but you have to understand I'm trying to do ten different things a day with ten different people and I get almost zero time to myself unless I enforce it like I am now."

She nodded, her head tilting down to the floor. After a moment her arms twitched and she threw them over Lincoln's shoulders as she gave him a sudden hug, carefully burying her head in the crook of his neck as she did so. This was what she needed right now, reassurance that this wasn't a dream and that this was real and her nightmare last night was fake.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end.

"Lana, I need to tell you something important." Slowly she pulled herself off of him, looking into his now somber eyes. "With everything that has happened, it doesn't feel like we're family anymore... But..." He raised his hand to her mouth, stopping her outcry short. " I'm giving everyone a chance to prove that I'm wrong, so far no-one has done anything but... You've done a lot more then them and I'm gonna tell you that you need to really prove that you really do love me like I'm your brother, how you do that... I'll leave that up to you ok? "

The little grease monkey nodded, sadness building up in her eyes but also understanding. "Ok."

" A little advice though, try to remember the times you did something wrong to me and try to fix it, ok? "

Before anything else could be said the bell rang throughout the school, alerting everyone to the need to get to class. Without waiting Lincoln stood from his spot, grabbed his possessions and bag before slowly making his way for the door. Lana being just a few steps behind him.

He turned back to her. "Lana, if you want to talk about what bothered you last night, you just have to ask ok?"

She gave on final nod. "Ok."

* * *

Slowly Luna plucked away at the strings on her guitar, trying to form a soothing melody to help calm her nerves. She had spent all day thinking about how to tell her parents what she had learned about Lincoln but without the power to use the drawing she felt pretty stumped on how to do so.

Between Lincoln's current behaviour and his very emotional drawing she had no doubts that she could convince her parents that something was wrong with Lincoln on a deep emotional level. Physically he seemed fine, for the most part, but she worried over his mental and emotional well-being. She was no psychologist but she understood that if you thought negatively then eventually you would look at everything negatively and eventually have a negative outlook on life itself.

If she was right about the messages in Lincoln's drawings then he felt overshadowed by the girls, that would result in the mentality that he wasn't as good as them and wouldn't be able to live up to their standards which, in turn, would lead him to believe he couldn't hold himself to the same standards.

A mentality that would lead to Lincoln dragging himself down in a never ending loop of despair.

Slowly a voice broke through the fog in her mind that was her thoughts, at first it was nothing more then a dull whisper but after a while it was more akin to a desperate call.

Her senses returned to her in an instant, she could feel her hands sit idly on the strings of her guitar, she was laid down on the wooden stage of her schools music room. There was very little noise other then the voice which was speaking to her, her eyes snapped into focus and looked towards the source of the noise.

Her friend, Sam, was taking up a large amount of her peripheral vision, a look of concern on her face.

"...lright Luna?" Her voice faded in and out of her ears as Luna struggled to get a grasp on what was being said.

Instantly she sat up, cradling her guitar in her arms before turning to Sam. "Sorry, What'd ya say? I was spaced out a bit there."

Sam took a moment to readjust herself, allowing herself to become more comfortable as the two of them remained on the stage. The other students paying them no attention as they focussed on trying to learn how to use an instrument for the first time.

"I asked if you were alright. You look really spaced out there. " She gestured to the spot in which Luna had been laying in with one hand, her other hand coming to rest on her own knee.

"Yeah I'm just... Lost in thought is all."

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Slowly Luna's hand drifted to the neck of her guitar, while it would be good to gain a second opinion on the matter Luna wasn't sure how to explain it to Sam without bringing up the bad luck ordeal. She was going to try her damn hardest though.

"Have you ever..." The rocker trailed off, trying to find the right words to say. After a while Sam gave an encouraging look to get her to continue speaking. "Have you ever meet someone that felt overshadowed? Like they really, really believed that they could not live up to the standard of others? But everyone knew they could?"

Luna paused, her face scrunching up as she tried to make sense of her own words. Her hands clutched into her guitar a little tighter.

" I don't think I have, why? Seen someone acting like that? "

For a moment Luna acted like a fish out of water, her mouth opening and closing as she tried and failed to say anything.

Eventually Luna gave up and laid back down on her back, throwing one arm over her eyes to keep the bright overhead lights out of them.

"I think Lincoln feels that way... I just, get that vibe from him. You know what I mean dude? "

Sam was silent for minute, a finger slowly tapping away at her chin as she raked her brain to try to remember what Luna had told her about Lincoln. She remembered that Lincoln was her only brother and the only boy in a family of girls no less, she also remember that Lincoln was good at music. He wasn't up to their levels of skill but he was better then most people his age... But beyond that she couldn't remember much more then that beside that he had a head full of natural white hair.

"I suppose I understand but what makes you think he feels that way?"

The purple rocker let out a very Lucy like sigh before turning towards her blue streak haired friend. "Just... I don't know, I get the feeling that he feels that way you know? Like... I can't explain it if I tried."

"Older sibling instinct." Sam supplemented , a hint of knowing in her voice as she spoke. " I get it a few times with Simon, though mostly when he's trying to touch my stuff. "

The girls let out a small giggle, though Luna's mood quickly dwindled back down. This was a lot harder then she thought, if only she could use the drawing to help her. Sadly Lucy had taken it and hidden it somewhere so she couldn't and so everyone else didn't find it, talk about a lack of trust.

if she couldn't explain it to one of her friends then how was she going to explain it to her own parents?

Granted there was a large leap in understanding between Sam and her parents, Sam was completely unaware of what had happened whereas her rents were.

She would just have to wing it unfortunately and hope for the best.

"So what's Lincoln's talent?"

For a second the purple rockers mind ran a blank as she processed the question, her mind struggling to shift from the last topic to this sudden new one.

All she could do was let out a very confused "Huh?" At the sudden change in topic and conversation.

Sam simply rolled her eyes at Luna's sudden dumbfounded features before bopping her on the shoulder. "Come on Lunes, surely Linc dudes got a talent. Every time we talk about your family it's always 'Lola won a pageant' or 'Lynn won a sport' or even going on how your sister's have great talents but not once have I heard about Lincoln's talent. "

Silence reigned for a few seconds and in that time a simple but crushing thought entered the blonde rockers mind.

"The little dude does have a talent right?"

Luna's mind raced as she tried to find a suitable answer to give towards Sam but she couldn't find the words to say. Sure Lincoln was great at a lot of things, he could easily keep up with each of the girls when helping with the girls with their talents. He was also a very good at multitasking between multiple of the girls at any one time but did he really have a talent?

There were his drawings - or drawing - but that could be down to practise and determination and could just be a one off masterpiece.

What really got the purple rockers eyes open was the fact that Sam was questioning if Lincoln even had a talent and that in turn made her question the same thing. The snow capped boy had shown a liking towards a lot of things, Ace savvy, muscle fish, AARGH... Didn't Lincoln like collecting coins?

He was a fan of Smooch but that was a preference towards music not a talent.

She quickly remembered his drawing, how detailed it was and how it was a real artistic masterpiece - at least in her eyes - and she realized that it was impossible to draw at that level without having spent years practising or... You were naturally good at it.

just before the idea of Lincoln being talentless could cement itself in Sam's brain Luan spoke up.

"Yeah, he does." She's paused to take on Sam's shift in facial expression. "I think." That last part came out meekly, as if she were afraid.

Before Sam could say anything though Luna quickly started up again. " what I mean by that is, I think I accidentally discovered his talent yesterday... If I'm right then I know Linc is going to do great but... He hasn't told anyone about it before so... I don't want to go around saying stuff that might not be true you know? "

Slowly Sam nodded before relaxing again.

"I can understand that, I just though that." She but her lip as she tried to find the best way to word what she wanted to say. " Maybe he feels overshadowed because he doesn't have a talent like the rest of you girls. Might be something to think about maybe? "

Luna opened her mouth to rebuttal Sam's words but stopped herself short.

That actually made sense, scarily so. Sam words brought Lincoln's hand drawn picture to mind, how said drawing displayed each of the girls showing off various trophies, awards, medals and other certifications of success while he was left along in his room, an empty room at that too.

An empty room that displayed his lack of achievement over the fact that his room lacked furniture, it was a detail that slapped you so hard on the face that you couldn't remember it happening at all. The purple rocker had completely overlooked that detail completely, she would have to bring it up with Lucy later, preferably before telling her parents.

Ugh... This was becoming so much more complicated now, how was she every going to sort anything out?

She let out a slightly whiny groan off despair as all the additional info poured into her mind, meanwhile, Sam was unaware as to why Luna seemed to suddenly fall further into a bad mood. She quickly racked her brain for anything she could say that could bring Luna out of her funk, her eyes lighting up joyously when she remembered something very important... And very british.

"Hey Luna," she could hear the loud rocker give a slight whine of acknowledgement. "Have you managed to save up enough for the Mike Swagger tickets that are going on sale next week? You know, the one for next month's show?"

In an instant Luna sat up, a small fire danced around the edges of her eyes in defiance of her other emotions.

"Don't even get me started Sam, you don't want to know how many kids in had to babysit for over the summer holiday, let alone what few small gigs I could get to help me along the way. I swear if I have to deal with Mr. Rosetie's hellspawn of a child one more time I will smash my axe in frustration."

Seeing Luna beginning to get worked up was probably one of the funniest things Sam would ever see in her life, knowing that it was really hard to get the pixie cut haired girl to even be slightly annoyed at you and now she was going off on calling someone's child a hellspawn with only the slightest prompt.

Her idea was working though, she could see Luna's eyes change with emotion as she thought less and less of their last conversation. There idea of going to a Mile swagger concert quickly engulfing her mind and why wouldn't it? This wasn't some run of the mill concert either, if one could afford it they were able to buy special V.I.P tickets that let you meet Mike in person backstage. It would last five minutes but be oh so worth it, she could still remember the time she had turned on her TV to watch one of Mikes shows and had seen Luna quite literally running on stage chasing after the British rockstar for a lock of his hair.

That made her day. For a whole week.

Still that came with some repercussion's, like Luna being out on a caution list for every Mile swagger concert for the foreseeable future and all the local guards being told to keep an extra set of eyes on her if she were ever to be there in person. She wasn't sure if that would affect their chances of getting backstage for the meet and greet but they would have to wait and see.

If they even got the tickets that is.

"Mr. Rosetie's child? Girl you gotta be desperate for those tickets if you're working for him, he pay good or nah?"

Luna scoffed but had an amused look in her eye. " Not enough to justify sitting on the regular but to work for him when you need quick well earned cash. "

Sam let out a short giggle, knowing how misbehaved that beast of a child could be at times... Or most of the time. Temper tantrums, anger fits, uncooperative behaviour and an unwillingness to listen made the child a literal devil but Sam at least had an idea as to why the child was like that.

Mr. Rosetie was almost never around the house, had a constant flow of different sitters and never seemed to have time to pay attention to his own child. That lack of attention combined with a lack of a constant character around must have left the young boy very confused and so negative behaviour was the only behavior that got attention. Ergo, bad behavior equals attention.

With a quick prompt Sam got Luna to tell her about all the horrors she had seen - and been a part of - while babysitting. Luna quickly fell into it, going into detail about every horrible thing the kids had done each night, her troubles with Lincoln quickly faded to the back of her mind where they couldn't distract her.

Sam just hopped that Luna's mood didn't drop quickly when they were done.

* * *

She paced back and forth, her face as red as her blood was hot.

Lynn clenched her fists as she paced back and forth in front of the middle schools bulletin board, her friend Margo was just a few steps away from her, watching as the brown head athlete seemed to let out steam with each breath she took.

Just earlier in the day the schools coach had posted an important article on the board regarding the teams that the royal woods squirrels would be facing off against in the next season. That in itself was trivial, what was important was what the bottom of the page said.

One of the local teams, the one who she had lost against recently, the very team she played against when Lincoln went to support her... We're disqualified from partaking in the next season.

Why?

Cause they had cheated, they cheated when playing against the squirrels, they cheated against her team, they cheated to be able to beat HER.

And it infuriated her to no end, if they had to resort to cheating to win then they shouldn't have even been playing to begin with. You win with skill, practise and dedication... With a bit of luck too.

Not by cheating.

The worst part?

It meant she was completely and utterly unjustified in having called Lincoln bad luck, simply because he could not be held accountable for the other teams actions in the slightest.

And that angered her because now she was deep down in a grave that she had dug herself into, over something that wasn't anybody's fault and there was no way to rectify the situation without getting herself into some serious trouble.

Deep down she knew she had to apologise to Lincoln, none of this was his fault.

It never was.

* * *

**A/N: Ok, first things first, Sorry not sorry for the long wait. Shit happens, life happens, deal with it.**

**Alright important announcement:**

**I need your guys opinion on something important, as you have noticed the wait time between chapters is getting longer and longer.**

**This is because as I focus on only this story I am getting more and more burned out as I'm trying to write each new chapter, it's not a burden or exhausting just slightly tedious at the moment.**

**I was wondering if you guys would be interested in me starting up a new story so I can alternate between the two of them so I can have some variety as I write. No Such Luck, No Such Love will NOT be put on hold so don't worry about that, I just need to clear my head of some ideas so I ****can focus on this story more.**

**Believe it or not but I Don't write notes or first drafts or pre plan my entire story, I wrote directly from my mind to the page so all my ideas are up there, mixed up with four other stories who's story lines are all growing up in my head.**

**I need to write at least one of them down.**

**If this is something you all agree with or would like to see say so in a review or PM me directly. If it is then later I will start a poll so you, the readers may choose which story I will write. (No betas, no collabs, just you voting on which story to write.)**

**The story idea will all be written down on a separate page and uploaded as its own 'story' and won't be added to this story's chapters.**

**So keep an eye out for that should I do it, best to check my profile page to see if the ideas are there.**

**Since it is late for me when upload this you all have until the morning (currently 00:12am, I wake up at 7:15am) to tell me what you think and then I will either abandon the idea or start it up.**

**Thank you for reading this.**

**Mistakes Will be fixed tomorrow, too tired to deal with them right now, but do tell me if you see them.**

* * *

**The poll has been created and is currently on my profile, to anyone who wants to contribute to it make sure you leave a vote on the Poll itself DO NOT, PM me your choice or leave a review with you choice.**

**Both of these things will be ignored due to the fact that it could cause you to have multiple votes when the poll is set to ONE vote per person.**

**When the poll is finished I will announce the results until then you will have to wait.**


	16. Chapter 16

Lynn walked her way down the sidewalk, having decided to walk home after school so she could cool off by going on a jog to wear herself down.

Fortunately she had worn herself down, she could feel sweat drip down her forehead and run down her back, her pits were swimming in her filth and she was sure she smelt just as badly too.

Unfortunately her mood had not changed ever since she had learned that the team she had lost against had cheated, she was certain that she would punch anyone on that team the moment she saw them again.

To her, cheating on a sport was just as bad as teachers made cheating on a test sound. Cheating meant that you couldn't win through the normal means and by normal means she meant hard work, determination, skill and a splash of luck.

It meant that those undeserving of winning wormed there way through the ranks, setting a bad example the entire way.

She wasn't sure the specifics of how they cheated, nothing on the bulletin board had covered that. With no news articles or public media sites covering the discovered foul she had no way to figure it out, if only to make sure it couldn't happen again.

Even now she could feel her blood boil as she thought about it, how low did one have to sink to resort to cheating? When she had decided to walk home she had left Margo behind with nothing more than a little 'I have to cool off' before leaving her friend to her own devices.

The athlete felt a little bad about that, she shouldn't have left her friend on her own but Lynn had decided that it wouldn't of been wise to expose her friend to her anger at the time. She would have just lashed out at her unnecessarily, which could have potential damaged their friendship.

It was a shame that she hadn't thought to do that for Lincoln, then she wouldn't have been in such a sour spot.

She knew she had caused a lot of trouble, for both herself and Lincoln, Lincoln had gone through the entire punishment he had been dealt for nothing and she knew she couldn't brush that detail aside like it was nothing. Of course she had to apologise but she also had to admit her own fault in the matter, she shouldn't have immediately placed the blame on her brother and she shouldn't have been so cold to him afterwards either.

Truthfully she had been pretty bummed out after the initial loss and had held on to her emotions just after the game when her team had gone to the changing rooms. When she left and saw Lincoln though, that changed. She wasn't sure what it was about her brother that made the fire in her belly grow tenfold or what made her decided to offload on him but she knew she had done it the wrong way.

Lynn let out a disgruntled sigh, Lincoln shouldn't of had that effect on her at all. So why did he? It didn't matter, what mattered in the end was that she apologised to him and managed to bury the hatchet between them. If she didn't - and in some small case, even if she did - she would still be teetering on a knife blade, her unjust actions against Lana and Lincoln were fresh in her mind now that they had been dragged up. If any of that came to light then she would be in seriously deep trouble.

Looking up she could see her home come into view, the scattered toys littered the front yard, sports equipment was left strewn about. It looked to be in all its unkempt glory, she wouldn't change that for anything. The closer she got the more she could hear the noise of the house, reaching levels that she was sure must have annoyed the rest of the neighbours. It was a miracle that they had received so few noise complaints over the years, ignoring Mr. Grouse of course.

When she finally stepped inside she saw the chaos that was causing the commotion. Lola was driving around in her pink car, Luan was chasing Leni with a fake spider on a stick with a camera in her other hand, Lori was talking loudly on her phone doing her best to ignore everyone else and Lily was playing around on the floor close to the eldest girl of the family.

Feeling the sweat on her pits again she decided that it was best she have a shower first, before her mother got on her case again about being smelly. Dodging past her sisters Lynn went up the stairs two steps at a time, as she always did. From there she went in her room to collect some of her nightwear, she wasn't going to go out anymore so there was no issue with wearing something comfy.

After sifting through all her dirty clothes for that one shirt she liked to use as a pajama top and her shorts, she turned around and left the room. Hopefully no-one would be in the bathroom right now.

As she walked down the hallway she caught ear to a conversation going on in one of the rooms, Luna's room to be specific.

"Do you think Sam's right?" Luna's voice traveled down the hall, hints of worry and uneasiness lingered in her voice as she spoke to whoever was in there with her.

" It would make sense... If you think about it like that. " Lynn knew that monotone voice anywhere, Lucy, what was she doing in Luna's room? The goth normally couldn't stand being around the rockers noise but considering she couldn't hear any music as the moment, she supposed Lucy could handle being in there for now.

But what were they talking about?

When she steeped in front of the open door she saw the two of them, Luna was sat on her beanbag, arms hanging down to the floor while Lucy was sat down in front of her. Legs crossed and sitting as still as a rock, it often unnerved her how still and quiet Lucy could be at times, add on her pension for the dark and dreary and it suddenly became a lot harder to be in her presence.

For Lynn at least.

"That's what makes it worse Luce, that I actually understand why it makes sense... And I have no idea how to fix it."

Feeling her curiosity being peaked she went closer to the door before leaning on the door frame, the wood groaned slightly at her weight and it caught the attention of the rooms two occupants. Luna's head shot up and their eyes meet, Lucy herself showed no signs of having noticed her.

"Whatcha talking about?" Luna was already getting up from her spot before Lynn had started talking and was halfway across the room by the time she was done speaking.

When the purple clad rocker got to her door she grabbed a hold of it and began to close it, pushing Lynn back slightly with her other hand.

"Something that doesn't involve you."

Just like that the door was shut in her face, she could hear the door lock, even over the rest of the noise the house emitted.

"Rude much." She's turned away with a huff, making her way to the bathroom with the intention of kicking out whoever was in there. Luckily no-one was in the bathroom currently, she locked the door behind her before turning the showers handles letting the water warm up.

She's let out another huff as she thought back to what Luna had just done. Ever since her last game Luna had been acting really... Shitty towards her. She wasn't sure what had caused the rocker to currently dislike her at the moment but she knew that it must have been an unjust reason, people didn't just randomly start hating each other without a reason after all.

After de-clothing and pulling her hair band out, she threw herself into the shower and pulled the curtain around the tub, just in case Leni decided to break down the door again. That girl was freakishly strong. As she washed herself down she couldn't help but question what Luna and Lucy were talking about, what could the two of them talk about? They were practically opposites, one loud and one quiet, just about nothing was similar between them.

she let that thought escape her as she started to washer hair. Her thoughts went back to having to apologise to Lincoln, but how? Upright honesty would be a good start, admit her fault and explaining her side would probably let him understand her reasoning... Yeah, that could work. She'll do that at dinner.

Stepping out after she finished cleaning herself down, she dried off with one of the towels before putting on her nightwear. Throwing her clothes into the hamper she made her way out of the bathroom, seeing Lola standing there with a impatient look on her face.

"Finally! What took you so long?"

Lynn regarded the pink princess with a dull look before giving - what she considered to be - the best reply to her question.

"Would you rather I didn't shower and smelt like a pig all day?"

Lola's face scrunched up as she turned her head away from the jock.

" Fine but you know the rules when it comes to showers, you best follow them next time. " with that the six year old walked past her and into the bathroom, shutting it behind her.

I just what had she meant by that? She's wasn't in there that long was she? A quick look to the clock in the hallway proved that she hadn't been in there ten minutes. Perhaps Lola was just impatient today? Whatever, it didn't mean anything.

Walking into her room she casually picked up her tennis ball before she flopped onto her bed. Slowly she began to throw the ball against the wall as she though more about exactly what she was going to say to Lincoln. Hopefully afterwards she and him could go back to being buddies and he wouldn't mind sparring with her a bit.

* * *

Inside Lincoln's room, two of the house residents were sat on the blanket covered mattress.

For the past hour Lana had been telling Lincoln about her nightmare she had the previous night. She had decided to do so after school, she felt like it was important to tell someone about it and figured that Lincoln was the best candidate as he had already helped her deal with her nightmare last night.

The white haired boy in question was sat on the pillow end of the bed while he listened to his younger sister tell her story. At first it had started off like any other story the younger girls would make up but it quickly spiralled down and he understood why she had been so scared last night.

He couldn't imagine having such a nightmare himself and hoped that he wouldn't have one like it in the future. The young mechanic was laid down on the end of his mattress, looking up at him uneasily. After a moment of silence Lana found the courage to speak up.

"You're not going to..." She paused as she saw Lincoln turn his head her way and she struggled to find the right words to say.

It seemed she didn't need to say it as Lincoln shook his head.

"No, I'm not going to run away Lana, it's... A stupid idea."

Silence reigned between them and Lincoln found himself adjusting himself so he was more comfortable where he sat. As he sat there he couldn't help but feel like it was his fault that Lana had had her nightmare, if he had decided to simply put everything behind him then she wouldn't have felt the way she did that caused her to have her nightmare. That alone caused him to feel like the worst person in the world.

"Lincoln?" He looked back to her and he seemed to be hesitant to talk as her mouth opened and closed for a moment before she found her voice. "Can I... Stay in here again tonight?"

At first Lincoln wanted to decline, to say that his space was his space and he didn't want it to be breached but quickly realized that maybe... Just maybe, Lana didn't quite believe that he wouldn't run away or shut her out again. Besides, her nightmare must have still been affecting her, those things didn't go away very fast when you were young.

"Ok..." The young girl let out a gasp before hurrying across the bed to wrap Lincoln in yet another hug. He let her as he casually patted her back. "But I don't want all your pets in here ok?"

" Hop's is okay right? "

He rolled his eyes at her but couldn't argue. "As long as I don't wake up with him on my face, deal?"

" Deal. "

For a moment the two of them say there hugging each other, Lana unwilling to let go and Lincoln quite enjoying the embrace. Sadly it was broken apart due to Lynn Sr. calling everyone down for dinner.

Getting up the two of them slowly made their way down the stairs after each of the other girls who were upstairs. None tried to speak to him, although he could have sworn that Lucy looked at him a bit longer then should have been normal, even for her.

When they finally got down to the dinning room, everyone else was already sitting down and waiting. Except for Lynn. The athlete looked a little nervous but otherwise was fine, he didn't pay attention to her as he and Lana tried to sit in the only two seats that were empty and next to each other.

"Hey Lincoln. " he ignored the jock as she tried to get his attention. He placed his hand on the back of the chair in order to pull it back so he could sit down but felt Lynn place her hand on his shoulder. "Lincoln I need to talk to you."

Giving off a silent sigh the only boy turned around and face her, however, he gave no visual cue to tell her he was listening. There was still a very strong sense of loathing he held towards her that couldn't simply go away at any point, realising that he wasn't going to talk she started.

"Listen... I need to tell you something important... You remember that game of mine you came to watch?"

His eyes narrowed at her , was that really how she recalled it, that he had chosen to go to her game and wasn't... You know... Threatened.

"Well, my school posted the line up for the next game season and... That team has been disqualified."

"Wait what?" Lynn turned towards Luan as she asked the question. Soon each of the other girls - minus Lana and Lily - started to ask questions and each other their voices overran each other.

"QUIET!" Each of the girls flinched at Lori's voice before quieting down. " Please continue Lynn. "

Giving a nod to her biggest sister, Lynn continued. "So it turns out that during the game my team played against them, and probably other games too, they had been... Cheating."

" So I need to apologise to you Linc, cause of their cheating I ended up getting wound up by our loss and... Took it out on you. " Lynn scratched the back of her neck as she looked away for a moment, trying to recollect her thoughts. "I shouldn't have done that, it wasn't right for me to call you bad luck when it wasn't your fault and... I shouldn't have thrown you under the bus."

" I admit full responsibility for that and I'm sorry I did Lincoln can... Can we bury all this and go back to normal? "

Lincoln stood there, shocked, was she really saying all this? Or had he fallen asleep after talking to Lana? Feeling the sores on his body he reaffirmed that this was all real. Was she being serious? Did she really think some half baked apology was going to change everything that she had done?

"Thank you Lynn, that's very mature of you." Her mother praised her and just like that Lincoln's mind fell into a bit of a trance.

Mature? Was that really how Rita saw that? Was that how someone became mature? By doing something wrong for no reason and then expecting to be forgiven after giving a half done apology? In Lincoln's mind it wasn't enough, it wasn't close to enough for him to forgive her, it wasn't even enough for him to consider accepting the apology that she had said.

Each of the other members of the house waited anxiously for Lincoln to respond, they hoped that maybe this was it, what it took to get Lincoln to forgive them. If Lynn could apologise, then surely he would listen to everyone right? Well one did not believe it would work and another did not know it was what everyone else was thinking.

Lana sat there, worried as she saw Lincoln's face in a blank state and Lisa herself was casually counting the seconds on her watch.

"Well Lincoln, what do you say to Lynn?" The prompt by his ex-father figure was enough to snap Lincoln out of his internal thoughts.

He looked over to Lynn, who had extended her arms slightly, as if asking for a make up hug. What Lincoln did next was something that would not be forgotten for a long time.

He stepped forward and just as quickly Lynn stepped forwards too and embraced Lincoln in a hug, a hug he didn't not return. Most of the girls grew smiled on their faces, believing that Lincoln was ready to forgive them... How wrong they were.

When Lynn stepped back, she kept her hands on Lincoln's shoulders, not noticing how tense he was. "We good now Lincoln?"

He blinked .

In the flash of a second Lincoln's arm shot out and a loud slapping noise sounded throughout the dinning room, Lynn's head shot to the side as she stumbled back, her hand instinctively going to the cheek to cover the area that has been slapped.

Everyone - minus Lily and Lisa - gasped at the sight of Lincoln slapping Lynn. Lisa herself calmly wrote down the time it took for Lincoln to reach that moment as she muttered to herself.

"You poor, foolish, homo-sapiens... " none heard the small genius speak, despite the sheer silence they found themselves in, they were far too shocked to pay attention to anything else.

Lynn stood there with her hand on her cheek, her eyes were wide with shock and they were staring at Lincoln incredulously, the boy who had just struck her was shaking his hand to wards off the pain he felt from delivering the blow.

Her emotions flared and conflicted and after a moment she found her voice.

"WHAT THE FUCK LINCOLN!?"

Lynn's shout was the thing everyone needed to break out of their stupor.

"Lincoln!"

Without so much as missing a beat he turned back to Lynn Sr. Before putting on a fake look of surprise.

"OH!, Right. " he turned back to Lynn and extended his hand as if to give a handshake. "I'm sorry about that Lynn, I'm just going to say it all water under the bridge cause your cheek no longer hurts cause I've said sorry. " at first his voice had started out genuinely apologetic before quickly developing into sarcasm.

Lynn slapped his hand away, feeling her anger bubble up at him. "What do you mean my cheek no longer hurts? It stings like fuck right now."

" THAT'S MY POINT EXACTLY LYNN! " Lincoln's voice bellowed throughout the entire house. Lincoln may have been the second quietest person in the house but When he wanted to be loud, he was _**Loud**_, most flinched from the volume of his voice and any who was willing to speak up against him quickly found themselves silenced.

In that moment every drop of Lincoln's anger came out, he did not restrain himself one bit.

"JUST LIKE I DID WITH YOU, YOU SAYING SORRY TO ME DOES NOT SUDDENLY MAKE EVERYTHING YOU DID OKAY AND ACCEPTABLE! YOU SAYING SORRY DOESN'T TAKE AWAY THE FACT THAT I SLEPT OUTSIDE FOR TWO NIGHTS, IT DOESN'T BRING BACK MY FURNITURE AND IT DOESN'T UNDO ALL THE PAIN AND SUFFERING YOU DID TO ME OVER THE YEARS! "

Lincoln's hands balled together in an uncomfortable fist, without realizing it he had started to pace the length of the table. He kept his eyes on Lynn, knowing that trying to put her in her place was a task that often got you on the receiving end of her fists but he didn't care. This time he spoke with a bitter, yet controlled voice.

"Just because you say sorry doesn't mean I suddenly forget about everything you did and everything that has happened to me."

" Sorry does not absolve you of your actions Lynn, the same goes for the rest of you. " He turned back and waved his hand over the table, gesturing to everyone who was sat there... Save for Lily of course.

"Now I'm going to say this once and only once. The only person in this room I consider family is Lily and that is because she hasn't done anything wrong to me, whereas all of you have... Especially you two! " He pointed directly at Lynn Sr. And Rita, he saw their faces light up in surprise.

"I don't want any of you near me unless you are fixing your mistakes understood?"

Without waiting for a word he snatched up his plate and quickly stormed his way up the stairs and towards his room.

Downstairs each of the girls were left stuck in their places, unable to process exactly what had just happened. It was so sudden, so surprising and most of all, completely uncharacteristic of Lincoln that it shocked them into silence.

"Dude... What just happened." Without so much as missing a beat Lisa adjusted her glasses before she spoke in a calm and collected manner.

"Why my musically inclined feminine sibling, I do believe Lincoln just lost the ability to withhold his raging emotions behind a veil of calmness and has just unleash said emotions onto us believing it to be the best way to convey his internal thoughts in a manner we would understand. "

Lisa saw the confused looks several of her sisters were giving her, she let out a sigh as she shook her head. "Neanderthals, Lincoln finally hit his breaking point and snapped at us, does that appeal to your lower then average IQ's. "

"Lisa, please don't speak to your sister's like that. " slowly, she turned to her mother, who seemed to be having a hard time understanding what had just happened.

"And yet you are not reprimanding Lynn for using curse words, especially against our sole male sibling. "

The parents quickly lost their voice after that, for the next five minutes Lisa ate her dinner while the rest of them sat there silently.

After what felt like an eternity, Lynn finally found herself again.

"Why I'm going to..." The athlete was quickly interrupted by the genius .

"Do nothing... Unless you wish to lose a kidney."

The jock scoffed. "Please I don't need two. "

"Then how about I take a lung instead, would that be sufficient to dissuade you? "

As fast as one could register the athlete turned to face lisa. "You wouldn't dare. "

"I have managed to successfully remove Lincoln's appendix, Perform multiple tests on all of you and other such stuff while you were all sleeping... Don't doubt me Lynn. "

For a moment the two of them stared at each other, neither willing to back down. In a moment of defeat, Lynn looked away before sulking over to the table before taking her seat. Having no reason to stick around, Lisa got off her seat and made for the stairs, leaving the rest of her family behind to contemplate on what had just happened.

After a short while Lana herself decided she wasn't hungry anymore and began to leave the table too, As much as Lincoln's display had scared her, she realised that it wasn't aimed at her but Lynn and everyone else. She already knew that Lincoln didn't see her as a sister no more, so She didn't feel worse when she heard him say it again.

However, she was still upset, not at him but for him. He was trying so hard to keep a cool facade and everyone was pushing all his buttons the wrong way, it took Lincoln to quite literally explode at everyone for them to listen to him.

she ascended the stairs with a bit of hesitation, she doubted that Lincoln's foul mood would have subsided so quickly but she wanted to make sure he was ok.

When she was finally in front of his door she gave a hesitant knock, the last time she had come in without permission had resulted in Lincoln shouting at her. Although he had admitted that it was just to get her to leave instead of being angry.

Not having received a reply, she carefully opened the door, it was entirely possible that he didn't hear her knock. She poked her head in slightly, ready to turn and leave at a moment's notice. She saw him sat on the mattress, head in his hands as his elbows rested on his knees.

"Lincoln? Can I come in?"

Seeing him give a nod she stepped in and shut the door behind her. She moved to sit next to him and suddenly found herself in a tight, but not uncomfortable hug.

"I'm sorry... I shouldn't have shouted at you."

Not quite knowing what to say she simply embraced him just as tightly as he embraced her.

* * *

Lori was at a loss for words.

What started off as a normal family dinner had gone very bad, very fast.

When she and her sisters had first seen Lynn apologise to Lincoln she had though that it was going to be the start of fixing whatever issues they had with Lincoln. Instead it turns out that they were only just scratching the surface of the problems and a simple 'I'm sorry' wasn't enough to deal with it and fix everything.

Ultimately, Lori didn't blame Lincoln at all. If that had happened to her then she would most certainly hold onto it for a long time and a simple sorry most defiantly wouldn't be enough to fix the issue.

But Lincoln's words had struck deeper then that.

_"I don't want any of you near me unless you are fixing your mistakes!"_

Lincoln's words echoed in her mind and she couldn't stop the memories of all the times she had been horrible to Lincoln.

From the times she had used him as a footstool, to the times she purposefully saddled him with tasks she couldn't be bothered to do herself and up to the times she had been unnecessarily mean to him for no reason other than needing to let off some steam.

It was entirely unfair, on him. She wanted to go see him, check up on him and be the big sister she was supposed to be but his shouting and Lisa's not so subtle threat was keeping her locked to her bed, ignoring her phone as she tried to organise her thoughts.

"Lori," her immediate younger sisters voice caught her attention, she looked over at Leni to see her looking back at her with tears in her eyes. "Are we bad sisters?"

Lori's throat closed when she heard how sad and dejected Leni sounded, it wounded her to know how deeply Lincoln's words had cut them.

" No. We just did some bad things... " she could feel herself chock up as she tried to consol her. "We just did some bad things recently. "

Knowing something that would cheer Leni up she gestured her to come over for a hug. Without a word the sixteen year old climbed into Lori's bed and got herself wound up in a deep embrace.

Lori may not have been the best big sister, that didn't mean she couldn't start now.

* * *

**A/N: Surprise, New chapter.**

**to those of you who may not know, the reason this story didn't get updated sooner was because I was working on my other story 'Moving In' while I worked through being burned out on this story.**

**If you want check out that story, if you don't whatever, I don't care it's your choice.**


	17. Chapter 17

The loud blaring of the alarm rang through Lincoln's ears. He gave off a groggy moan of disappointment as he was ripped from his sleep.

For a few moments he simply lay there as sleep ebbed its way out of him.

As his senses returned to him he could feel a weight on his chest, peering one eye open he spotted Lana curled up next to him softly snoring away. Despite how he felt, even he couldn't argue that seeing the normally rough and tumble girl in a cute manner was enough to lighten his mood slightly.

Slightly, his mood was still heavily dampened after yesterday, he had managed to work through his sadness and guilt for having to shout at Lana... Again. However, his anger had not faded one bit and as his senses returned to him he could feel his mood already begin to drop down again.

Turning his head to face the clock he almost dismissed the time when he gave it a quick glance.

Quarter past seven, not too bad.

"WHAT!"

His body shot up from the bed, panic and alarm surging through him, forcing his brain to wake up. Lana herself was throw to the side due to his own body launching hers as he shot up out of bed.

No. No. No. NO!

He had forgotten to reset the alarm back to quarter past six. He had set the alarm to quarter past seven yesterday morning for Lana's sake and had completely forgotten to set the alarm back an hour for his own use this morning. That meant he was now running late... By his own terms.

Now he was going to have to rush to get ready before everyone else began to crowd the rest of the house. He sprung up from his spot on his bed before gathering up whatever clothes he could find laying around his room.

"Lincoln?" His eyes darted over to Lana as she sat up on his bed, a look of concern mixed with fear etched onto her face as she look at him. He realized that he must have woken her up when he shot up out of bed, how could he not have, he practically threw her against the wall.

" Hey, sorry for waking you but I gotta go, I'm late. "

She looked over to the clock and frowned, it wasn't late at all. So what was Lincoln on about? Before she could ask Lincoln turned and rushed his way out the door.

The white haired boy ran to the end of the hallway as he tried to get there first before any of the girls managed to get up. He slammed his way into the door before turning back and locking the door behind him.

For a few minutes he spent his time getting ready. Slowly his panic faded away and was left with a sense of calm urgency, yes he had to leave right now but he didn't need to act like a spooked gazelle as he did so.

Shaking off the last of his post-panic stress he spat out the remains of the toothpaste that was in his mouth before rinsing his mouth out with warm water. He took one look at himself and realised that he looked horrible, his hair was a mess and he looked like he had just come out of a horror house. Taking a moment to straighten himself out he put on the best neutral face he could, he wouldn't do himself any favours if the girls saw him getting ready in such a rush and panic style.

Turning around he unlocked the door and opened it. Only to be meet with the surprised faces of Lisa, Luan and Lori, lined up in that order. He didn't give them a sparing glance as he walked past them.

"Linc-"

"Overslept." He interrupted Luan was she tried to speak to him, cutting her off before she could really say anything or crack one of her irritating puns .

Lisa slipped into the bathroom as the others were fixated on him and the two remaining girls moved forwards on instinct to fill in the gap before someone else did.

Knowing time was of the essence Lincoln quickly made his way downstairs and into the kitchen, he had no time to make himself anything to eat and just had to get something that could be eaten as he made his way for school. Although he wouldn't be late by any means - even when walking - he didn't want to be in this house any longer.

Much to his annoyance, Lynn Senior was present in the kitchen beginning to make breakfast for everyone else. He paid the man no mind as he started to rummage through the cupboards for something to snack on for his walk.

"Hey sport, feeling better today?" He ignored him as he came across several of Lynn juniors energy bars, they weren't filling nor would they really give him energy. They were large clumps of sugar disguised as 'healthy' snacks, perfect. Not caring about any repercussions that may come from it he pulled several bars out of the cupboard before stuffing them into his pocket as he turned away and made a hasty leave from the room.

Just as he was making his way to the door he walked past Lisa.

"I do believe you are forgetting something elder male resident."

He turned back to look at the young genius for a moment, his face scrunching into a curious look at he thought about what she was on about.

"Your bag."

Realising that she was right he gave her a nod before going back upstairs, passing by the growing line to the bathroom, unintentionally catching the attention of those lined up. He ignored them as he made a B-line for his room where he swooped up his backpack before turning and leaving without a second thought.

His eyes caught Leni looking at him before he squinted at her as he turned away to go down the stairs. None of them tried to speak to him as he went past them.

When he hit the bottom step he did a double check to be sure he had everything he needed.

"Hey Lincoln."

He turned his head to look over his shoulder, seeing Lori standing just behind him. He turned away, not at all bothering to listen to her as he slowly made his way for the door.

"You don't need to walk Lincoln, I can drive you to school."

He rolled his eyes as his hands reached to unlock the front door, what a great idea, to cram himself into a big hot smelly van with everyone he didn't want to be near to.

On his way out the door, he paused just long enough to give Lori the stink eye before shutting it closed.

The eldest girl flinched at the noise of the door shutting, mentally scolding herself for that pathetic attempt to speak to Lincoln. She had only said that because it was the first thing that came to her mind and she needed to say something to him before he had left, there was no way she could have gone running after him while she wasn't dressed.

As far as sacrificing her spot in the queue for the bathroom went... She didn't care, she just knew she needed to try to talk to Lincoln. Sighing she turned for the kitchen, knowing that it would be pointless to try to wait in line now. When she entered she saw that Lisa was Sat at the table reading the daily newspaper, odd but not uncommon, her father was busy cooking away on the stove.

Ever since Lincoln had started to leave early in the morning all of the work had fallen into their father, sure he normally cooked breakfast but now he was also saddled with getting everyone ready in the morning.

As much as a small part of her wanted to drag Lincoln back in to help, a much larger part was willing to leave it all up to her parents to do. It shouldn't have had to fall down as Lincoln's responsibility, maybe hers as she was the eldest but definitely not his.

Sitting down next to her brainy sister she let out a tired yawn, taking one glance at the paper showed that she was reading up on politics, again odd but not uncommon. The eldest could see that her father had a defeated look to him and she suspected she looked the same, how could they have screwed up so badly?

She watched as her mother walked in, grabbed a cup of coffee from the mixer before sitting across from her. It seemed everyone was down today as her mother's shoulders sagged or she may have been simply tired.

"Any luck dear?"

The father of ten shook his head at his wife.

"No, he didn't even listen... I don't understand, he shouldn't be acting like this."

_' He shouldn't be? Or you don't want him to_ be?' The thought had quickly crossed past Lori's mind before she could register it, however, she couldn't argue against it. Lincoln had every right to be the way he was, how often was he pushed down? Both mentally and physically? Too many for her to count.

Wanting to pull herself away from her thoughts she pulled her phone out of her pajama pocket, she never went anywhere without it... Obviously.

"I know dear, I really thought you having that talk with him would have set him straight. "

Ah, yeah. The talk.

Lori remembered her parents going on about needing to talk to Lincoln after the punishment was done, that way he would understand why everything happened. It seemed that all it did was delay Lincoln a bit before he exploded.

"But... I thought you were gonna talk to him."

Lori thumb paused above her phones screen as she looked up to her parents, her mind ran abuzz as that sentence re-ran through her head again and again. In the end she voiced her thoughts.

"Please tell me I did not literally hear that right now?"

The two parents looked to her before turning to each other, the same look of bewildered understanding on each other's faces. Lori knew the look and couldn't stop herself from groaning, her free hand coming up to press against her face for a moment before she lowered it down again.

"Really? Neither of you two talked to him? No wonder he's the way he is, he probably thinks we thought he was bad luck."

Both parents were unable to say anything to their eldest... As there was nothing they could say that would placate their eldest child. It didn't stop someone else from speaking though.

"I'm afraid to say, my eldest sibling, that neither of our parental units talked to Lincoln and because of that he indeed does believe we thought he was bad luck."

She looked to her second youngest sister for a moment before she shook her head, standing up she pocketed her phone before making for the stairs. She didn't want to be around her parents right now, she felt like she was about to have a meltdown with this information.

Not only had their parents failed to do the only thing they said they were going to do but they had been going about believing that they had done it as well. How could one fail so badly as that?

Wishing to rid herself of her thoughts she lined up at the back of the queue for the bathroom, right behind Luna herself. The purple rocker took note of the eldest's mood.

"Something wrong big sis?"

Lori looked to Luna before giving off a sigh. "Everything's going to be a lot harder then you originally thought Luna."

The rockers face scrunched up, confusion etching into her features quickly. "How so?"

" Where to start? Lincoln hates us, we've been horrible sisters, oh... And mom and dad both forgot to talk to Lincoln about his punishment. " For a moment - and only a moment - Lori displayed behaviour unbecoming of the eldest by pouting with her arms crossed.

"So that means..."

" Yeah, Lincoln thought that we though he was bad luck and we were pushing him away over it. "

" Well... Damn. "

* * *

"You slapped her!?" Lincoln gave a nod towards the Hispanic girl before he turned to walk down the hallway, Ronnie quickly following with a look of bewilderment on her face.

It was currently Lunch, since leaving the classroom Lincoln had begun to tell Ronnie the story of what had happened yesterday. He spared no detail that he could remember and this time he did take a little bit of joy out of her reactions, mainly seeing the look of shock on her face when he said he had slapped Lynn around the cheek.

Despite finishing his - Not so tall - tail, that was the detail that she was stuck on. Not because he had hit a girl, or hit someone in general but because he had stood up for himself in a way he hadn't done before. Lincoln understood her shock completely, he had always lived his life as the doormat of the family and to suddenly spring up from his spot on the floor to knock someone else around was definitely something no-one would have expected out of him.

"Well, yeah... What else was I supposed to do? Hug and make up?"

At first Ronnie opened her mouth to say something but quickly paused, she quickly realized that she had nothing she could say. The two pre-teens made their way outside to get some fresh air, neither of them had wanted to go to the cafeteria today and so they had decided to go outside.

"Ok, fair enough but was there nothing else you could do?" Lincoln turned to her with one eyebrow raised but said nothing as they continued to walk. "I'm just asking."

"Probably but I was just so... Shocked, that I wasn't thinking straight."

The white haired boy thought about it for a moment before shaking it off.

"I mean, I guess I was surprised that my mom... Sorry, Rita, had called Lynn mature. Can you believe that?"

Ronnie chuckled at that before straightening herself out. " I'm sorry, Mature? For what? Stopping to put the blame on you? "

"She wouldn't have apologised if she never found out the other team cheated, cause as far as she was aware it was all my fault."

" Wish I could have seen that. " She caught the look Lincoln was giving her before clarifying herself. "The slap not being blamed."

He wished he could show her, sure he would receive a lot of negative backlash for hitting her, especially from people who didn't know the full story but it would be a great momento to have. Suddenly a quick thought entered his mind. He spun around and began to walk backwards so he was facing Ronnie anne.

"Actually I could show you, you see Lisa has..." Suddenly Lincoln was interrupted as he bumped into someone, due to not looking where he was going. He turned around to apologise but quickly found himself facing a familiar red head.

Chandler.

"Sorry about that Chandler, wasn't looking where I was going."

The red head himself just gave off a half-hearted shrug before moving out of the way.

" Neither was I, so let's call it even. "

Both Ronnie and Lincoln watched as he began to walk away, both internally questioning where his usual posse had gone. Before the other boy could disappear into the crowd Lincoln called out to him.

"Chandler, I never got the chance to thank you for what you did for me on Tuesday so... Thanks for doing that."

Chandler scoffed before turning back to Lincoln and coming within a few steps of the boy, Ronnie tensed up as he did so, knowing that Chandler was not to be trusted. She made a mental note to ask Lincoln what he was on about.

"I didn't do it _for_ you Larry, I did it for myself... I just so happened to need to _help _you to get what i wanted. Ok? "

The boy from the large family shrugged. "At least you're truthful about it but know that I appreciate it anyway, you helped a lot more than you know. "

"Whatever." With that Chandler turned away and mixed into the middle of the crowded playground. Despite being very popular he knew how to hide amongst the crowd with ease. Perhaps he just got in so many places that he just looked like he belonged there or nobody really cared that much.

Pulling away from where they stood the two of them took a seat at one of the empty benches near the edge of the tarmac. Clyde would have joined them today but he had said that he had a previous arrangement he needed to attend to, unfortunately - much to Lincoln's dismay - he would not disclose what that was.

Clyde was entitled to his secrets as much as everybody else was so he didn't pry any further despite his curiosity.

"So... Got any plans? "

"Not really, other then going home as late as I can without getting in trouble." He looked across the tarmac as he though about what he could do. " might just wander around until curfew maybe find some new things to do, you know?"

"Wuss."

" Excuse me? " He quickly turned to her when She spoke and he could see the look of smugness on her face but also the light in her eyes that said she had an idea.

"After everything that's happened you're still going by your parents rules. Come on dude, be a bit rebellious. "

"And how exactly do I do that? Stay out late?"

Ronnie rolled her eyes before delivering a quick jab to the boys shoulder, he hissed in pain as he half curled in on himself and covered the spot with his hand.

"Careful, I'm still sore."

Her body went ridged when she realised that and she mentally cursed at herself for not remembering sooner, right, no more hitting... Until he was healed.

"And yes, do stay out late. And here's why. " She pointed an authoritative finger in his face as he tried to speak, he relented when he realised that she would not give up. "If you stay out late your parents will worry about you."

" That's why... " The boy quickly shrunk under the glare that she was giving him and decided that it was best to stay silent for now.

"Then." She spoke with a little more force to ensure she would not be interrupted again. "They might just give a damn long enough for do something worthwhile to make things right with you. "

To be fair she had a point, if they always knew he was going to be home yet distant then they might not actually do anything, but if he forced them to act like... Well parents, to him then they may just take their duties seriously for once. Everyone knew it had been a while since either of the parents had changed Lily's diaper or even so much as stopped an argument before it started, he couldn't do that though, not because of his parents but because of the younger girls. They would fret endlessly if he just disappeared without warning, especially Lana, who he had promised he wouldn't run away.

" I'll... Consider it." Didn't mean he couldn't give himself some personal time on more stressful days though.

"Good." The two suddenly found themselves in silence, not really having much to say to one another. Both of them breathed in the cool air and relaxed a little before their break could come to an end.

Ronnie bit her bottom lip as she remembered that she needed to ask Lincoln something, she had planned on asking earlier but with the prospect of hearing about his day she put it on the back burners of her mind. Now it had returned full force but she was questioning if now was the right time to ask or if she should wait till tomorrow.

"What?"

She blinked as he spoke to her, not noticing that he had turned to face her.

" How did you know I was going to say something? "

"I have ten sisters, I know when people want my attention... That and it was written all over your face with the expression you were making. "

The hispanic girl let out a sigh. "I was just wondering if... maybe..." She paused as She began to twiddle her fingers together , Lincoln furrowed his brows at her current behaviour as it was completely unlike her.

"Yes."

Ronnie let in a shaky breath before exhaling through her nose. "Could you help me with my homework? There I said it."

"Today?"

" No next year, obviously I mean today! " She glared into his mirthful eyes before she felt herself relax.

"So, your place later today?"

" Obviously Lame-O. "

* * *

Lynn was not having a good day today.

Between her cheek still being sore and everyone else asking questions about the ever so Slightly visable mark on her cheek, she had little space for herself. Many of her friends and peers were questioning her about the sudden appearance of a slap mark on her cheek and while they knew she came from a hectic household, they also knew she did not come from a violent one.

So far she had managed to redirect people away from the topic and managed to ignore those who were too adamant to give up easily, it wasn't like she could tell them anyway.

What was she supposed to say, 'oh yeah my younger puny brother slapped me round the face cause I apologised for calling him bad luck when I lost a game and got him locked out the house for two days'.

Yeah... no, she wasn't stupid.

That and she really didn't want to go around spoiling her own reputation by saying her own brother had knocked her down a peg, that would look really bad on her. Especially given how she had always gone on about how Lincoln could not stand up for himself and how he needed her to fight his fights for him.

Ok sure, he could deal with his own problems but Lincoln wasn't the type to commit to conflict out of choice, unlike her, it was why she took up the role of protector for those younger then her. She could handle a fight and everyone else knew it, that was why she was so adamant about getting Lincoln to spar with her. She needed him to toughen up and act more like the boy he was and be there for his younger sisters, to be their protector where she could not.

And yeah, she wanted Lincoln to act more like a boy and maybe get him into some sports so the two of them could play together again. There was nothing worse than watching him drift away from her over the years and get into his own things that didn't include her, videos games, comics, stupid conventions and other nerdy stuff that stole him away from her.

All she wanted was to be close to him again, deep down she knew this was why she had been so... Rough, with him over the years, where she could not convince Lincoln to join her for anything she used force to make him, hoping beyond hope that seeing her killing it at a game would make him consider joining up himself.

After last night though, she couldn't help but feel like all she had done was make him despise her and loath her. The ever so slight present sting on her face told her that she was probably right and that she had screwed up big time, more then she previously thought she had.

How far had she pushed Lincoln away whilst trying to coax him into sports? Did he even like her at all? Or was his anger to her based on the whole bad luck ordeal? No that couldn't be right, he had said they needed to fix all their problems with him. Surely that meant they had to fix everything they had ever done.

"Loud! Get your head in the game! " She shook her head when her coach yelled out to her. Realising that she had fallen behind on the track, behind many of the slow runners, she picked up her pace as she ran forwards.

She wasn't going to lose this. Even though there was nothing to win.

She let herself relax slightly when she came within the top five fastest runners, there was still several laps to do so she felt confident that she would outpace them right at the end.

With her blood pumping she couldn't stop her thoughts from going back to her little brother. All she had to do was make everything right, right? Fully apologise for everything and make it up to him in a way only she could, a way that said she really meant it.

But how?

Perhaps giving him a spar free month would be a good idea, sure she would miss out on it but if it meant doing good by him then it would be worth it. Was that enough though? Simple apologies didn't work... She learnt that the hard way. She would never admit it out loud but she did not want to be on the receiving end of one of Lincoln's slaps ever again, she even suspected that it wasn't his hardest hit either.

she had seen his face, disbelief, surprise, shock and then suddenly anger before she felt the stinging on her cheek.

She's flinched slightly as she remembered that and it brought a question to her mind. Should she really apologise to him? He did lie after all, he refused to go to her game, he had been ignoring all of them for a long while now and he had slapped her on the cheek. All because he was a little butthurt over being punished accordingly.

if he wanted to act all superior and hard done by then she wasn't going to dignify him with the response he so clearly wanted. She would wait until he came off his high horse and decided to go back to being normal, screw giving him any form of special treatment. She's apologised once, there was no need to do it all over again. Especially if he wasn't going to accept it, there was no reason to do something that didn't have positive results.

Yeah, why should she waste her time on a lost cause? She shouldn't... and she wasn't going to, when Lincoln decided to man up then she would be bothered to deal with him. Just like him, she would do as she pleased, when she pleased.

Just maybe She would make a small plan of how to apologise to her brother in the back of her mind, just in case her mother or father - or God forbid Lori - try to get her to, I didn't hurt too be prepared after all.

Until then she had a race to win.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry about the wait, been dealing with IRL stuff and a shoddy internet for a little while.**

**One thing I would like to say is: go thank Ktoonz on deviant art for the amazing thumbnail that I now have for No Such Luck, No Such Love.**

**I'm sorry for this chapter being shorter then normal but I really was struggling to get the word counter up to 5k so this will have to do.**


	18. Chapter 18

The sound of pencils on paper sounded away, scratches and scribbles which were accompanied with minor amounts of muttering from the owner.

Currently Ronnie was sat at the dinning table at her home working on several homework sheets that she had left till last minute. Something that - admittedly - wasn't uncommon or unheared of for the Hispanic girl. Luckily she had some help with her work today.

Said help came in two forms, the first being her friend Lincoln loud, who was sat next to her resting his chin on his arms as she watched her work. He would occasionally butt in or offer advice on how to do the work and would often explain the process needed to complete her work but aside from that didn't do much more. The second form of help came from her mother who had stated that it she didn't get caught up with her homework she would lose her privilege of being able to go out whenever she wanted within reasonable hours.

In other words, she would be grounded.

Still, when she asked Lincoln to help her she expected him to be a bit more... Involved. Maybe even do some of the work to show her how to do it, unfortunately for her, that wasn't the case. Instead, Lincoln was casually directing her on how to do it, making her learn how to do it on her own so that she wouldn't need his help once she figured out how to do it.

It was possible that Lincoln's new no-nonsense attitude was beginning to leak into other aspects of his self and not just his sisters. That or he had always been like this when it came to studying, it was also possible that he used this same method whenever he helped his younger sisters with homework. It certainly wouldn't surprise her if that was the case. Still she couldn't deny that his methods were effective, she was beginning to breeze her way through these math equations and was already done with one third of her homework assignments. All within two hours as well.

Feeling her hands begin to get a little cramped from holding her pencil for so long she felt that she deserved a small rest, so after finishing up the last equation on the page she placed her pencil down into the table before flexing her hands. She leaned back in her chair as she let her arms rest on the table, content with the work she had already accomplished. At the very least she could hand all that in tomorrow and prove to her mother that she took her seriously.

Lincoln took notice of Ronnie's actions, he caught himself trying to tell her to continue before he clamped his mouth shut. He knew that two hours of work was sufficient for a single day and he knew that her hands would also be cramped from the way she held her pencil. It was a small problem that he had whenever he drew for long periods of time, although it was a problem that was slowly getting easier to deal with.

For a few moments the two preteens sat in silence as they let their minds clear from the mental tasks they had put themselves through. Although this was far easier for Lincoln as he had already learned all of this previously and didn't have to put any real effort into doing the work.

Knowing that the silence needed to be broken Lincoln decided to speak up.

"You alright there?"

Letting out a sigh Ronnie turned towards the white haired boy, a small look of annoyance in her eyes. "I'm fine, can't I have five minutes to relax? My hands are hurting you know."

The boy shrugged, not really having anything to say to that as he knew what that felt like. Instead he looked to the clock that was hanging on the wall, taking note of the time and how much work had been done. Despite not finishing all of it, it was a substantial amount that was done, one third of two weeks of homework done in two hours was certainly impressive.

"Yeah, I guess we can stop for today. Do the rest on other days if you want."

Ronnie didn't need to be told twice as she began to pack her stuff away, separating the finished work from the unfinished work. She flexed her hand and could feel her muscles protest against the movement, it was the only reminder that she had actually done the work herself... With Lincoln's help of course.

She turned to the boy to see he was stretching his arms up high as he sat up for the first time since they started. Lucky... Fortunate actually, she wasn't ever going to use the L word ever again if she could help it.

"So, whatcha wanna do now?"

Lincoln tilted his head as he thought about it, in doing so he saw Bobby, Ronnie's older brother, making his way into the kitchen. Surprisingly he wasn't on his phone. He figured that he would have been on his phone just as much as Lori was considering he was who she was often on the phone to. Now the teen seemed to be in heavy thought.

"Sup Bobby."

The older boy snapped his head towards the two of them as he was ripped from his thoughts, a small smile worked its way onto his lips as he saw Lincoln.

"Little Loud, sup dude." The two engaged in their unique handshake , something that Ronnie rolled her eyes at but didn't complain about.

Afterwards Bobby moved over to the other side of the kitchen where he proceeded to get himself a glass of water, however, he seemed to have something on his mind as he couldn't bring himself to actually take a sip of his drink. He looked to the two preteens for a moment before deciding to swallow - what little - pride he had. He walked over to the table before placing his glass down atop it.

"Hey Lincoln," he watched as the white haired boy turned to him. " Can we uh... Talk quickly? "

Lincoln's face scrunched up in curiosity. "Uh, sure, about what?"

" Well... " Bobby let out a sigh as he pulled back one of the chairs to sit on so he wouldn't be standing above the two of them. " I just got off the phone with Lori... "

"That's a first." Bobby sent a playful glare Ronnie's way as the two kids struggled to hold in their giggles, he was fully aware of how much of his time was used to talk to Lori.

"Very funny sis. Anyway, Lori asked he to send a message to you. Said something about you blocking all of your sisters numbers or something like that."

" Anyway, she wanted me to tell you... Well actually she wanted me to tell Ronnie to tell you that Lori really needs to speak with you when you get home. Said it was really important, sounded like it too. "

For a moment Lincoln stayed silent, his face conforming into a confused look that seemed to mix with annoyance. Lori wanted to speak to him? For what, to complain some more about how things were unfair for her? Seeing all he needed to see Bobby reached over to rest a hand on Lincoln arm, gaining his attention when he did so.

"Lincoln." The teen spoke with a gentle voice that it actually surprised the two of them. " Is there something going on at home that people need to be aware of? "

In an instant Lincoln ripped his arm away from Bobby as if he had been burned by his touch, a look of panic crossed his face for a split second as he turned his head away to avoid eye contact. He knew that if he opened his mouth for a second about everything at home then he wouldn't stop until he was done... Nobody else needed to know. Not Bobby, Mrs. Johnson, principal Higgins or... Anybody. And definitely not someone like Bobby, the older boy would probably go to any length to do what he considered 'right' and the last thing he needed was for Bobby to break up with Lori, it would only backfire onto him, just like last time.

"Lincoln..."

" It's nothing Bobby... " Lincoln didn't look at Bobby as he interrupted him, he could feel the corners of his eyes begin to get wet and he forced himself to not cry. "It's just that... Me and my sister's are having a bit of a... Family feud at the moment."

Bobby looked to Ronnie seeing that she two was trying to avoid eye contact with him. Although he didn't quite believe everything he was told he decided that it was best to back of... Substantially... For now.

"Alright, hope it works out for you." He picked up his glass as he stood, leaving to two of them alone as he made for his room. Intent to get back to talking with Lori.

After a moment Lincoln managed to compose himself and he sat up straight and muttered out a meek apologise towards Ronnie.

"It's ok... So... You up for some muscle fish?" She jabbed her thumb towards the living room where her set up was.

" Yeah, sure. "

* * *

With her head tilted she adjusted her hands as she tried to maneuver the measuring tape to rest the metal tongue on top of the door frame.

The metal strip bent inwards under its own weight and Lana watched as it collapsed down towards her... Again. The strip landed atop her head and ran its way down her back, she just sighed as she untangled herself from it before pulling back the lock button, watching as the tape shot back into the roll extremely quickly.

That was the seventh time this had happened in a row and she was beginning to find it annoying. For some time now she had been trying to get accurate measurements on Lincoln's door frame and door. She had been far more fortunate in getting the doors measurements with the tape collapsing on her only three times, it probably helped that she could slide the tapes metal tongue between the door and doorframe where it wouldn't fall out randomly.

She was just having issues with getting the frames height measured properly and while she could try to measure any other door frame across the top floor she didn't want to run the risk of getting any inaccurate sizes just in case Lincoln's door was different to the rest in terms of proportions.

You see, earlier in the day, Lana had the idea to repair Lincoln's door. As a way to show him that she actually cared about him, what better way to do that then reinstating his privacy? Yes that's right, she wasn't fixing the door because it was broken, she was fixing it because in its current state it did not provide Lincoln with the basic level of privacy that everyone else in the house possessed.

Between the split door; broken lock, damaged door frame, loose handle and wonky hinges, it was a surprise that Lincoln still had a door to begin with, much less the privacy it did provide. It was something that Lana had labeled a maintenance emergency, nothing short of the oven exploding or vanzilla breaking down right when they didn't need her to would stop her from working on this.

she had already taken stock of all of her crafting materials and had found a large wooden board in the garage that had been spared from all elemental damage, solid oak too. However, it was only just larger then a standard door, so she had one chance to make a new one and like damn she was going to let it go to waste. She needed everything to be perfect, otherwise all her hard work would be for naught.

Slowly she began to unroll the tape again, being careful to not let the metal strip bend as she raised it higher and higher. Letting it rest against the wall for support she watched as it got closer and closer to the top edge of the wooden frame.

"Come on..." Carefully she adjusted the tape so it moved closer and closer to the frame. " Just a little more. " so close, she was almost there... A little further down and...

"LANA!"

She jumped as Lola's voice screamed throughout the halls of the house, making her fling the tape around before it quickly bent and fell back down towards her where it crumpled to the floor pitifully. She turned to look behind her as her younger twin marched her way up the stairs before turning towards her.

"YOU! What are you doing!?" The pink princess stopped just before her twin, trying to glare daggers into her. " You were supposed to fix my princess car! Why haven't you done it yet!? "

Lana blinked as she remembered that Lola had asked her to do that, just as all of them where being driven home by Lori. She had pushed it to the back of her mind for later, the toy car wasn't going anywhere yet.

"Because I'm doing something more important. The car can wait." Lana released the tape lock button and watched as the metal strip shot back into the casing... Again. Lola flinched as it did so but quickly bristled up when she deemed herself safe.

"Wait! I can't wait. I wanted to practise my driving and waving today!."

Lana rolled her eyes as she turned back around to continue her own task, despite knowing that it would prove fruitless with Lola right behind her.

"Well, this is more important than your car Lola... Either wait or get someone else to do it."

The pageant princess grit her teeth as she watched Lana ignore her. Her! Being less important than a door? She's was not having that. Not one bit.

"Someone else? What do you think I pay you for Lana!? It your job to fix my car, I pay you to do it!"

Lana began to re-extend the measuring tape, choosing to ignore Lola's complaining as she tried to focus on her task.

Seeing that she had no effect on her older twin Lola let out a growl as her fists clenched together, this was not how she wanted today to go. She's did not need this unnecessary level of stress being put on her, it certainly wouldn't do her skin any favours later.

Growing frustrated Lola did the only thing she could think of. She reached past Lana and grabbed hold of the metal strip before trying to pull it her way, the mechanic responded by gripping the case in a death grip whilst trying to pull it out of her younger twins hands.

The two of them quickly getting into a tug of war over the item.

"Hey, let go!"

"Not until you fix my car! "

"Not into I'm finished doing this! "

"My car is more important than... Than this!"

" Is not! "

"Is too!"

" Is not! "

"Is..."

" AHEM "

The twins turned to their side, seeing a slightly irritated Lisa standing before them with a look of annoyance in her eyes that she directed at the two of them.

"Would you kindly please elaborate exactly what this ruckus is all about. "

The twins both began to speak over each other, neither giving the other the chance to talk freely without interruption. This quickly devolved into the two of them trying to shout over one another, just as the two of them began to move closer to one another - both ready to get physical with one another - a loud horn blared in their ears. Forcing the two of them to cover their ears, both dropping the measuring tape simultaneously.

Lisa waited until the two of them removed their hands from their ears before she decided to speak up again. Lowering the air horn to her side before doing so.

"Now. Would you like to explain that again, one at a time." The scientist looked between the two of them for a moment before gesturing Lana to start.

"Well... I just wanted to fix Lincoln's door and well... " Lana shuffled from foot to foot, her hands wringing together in an attempt to quell her nervousness. "I choose to do that instead of fix Lola's car... Or anything else really."

"Ok, is this true Lola? "

"Yes! And I told her that she needed to do it today, she knew that! " Lisa took note of Lola's tense form, she looked ready to strike at any moment or at the slightest sign of aggravation.

"Well clearly there is some miscommunication going on here. " Lisa gave a curt nod at her own hypothesis before she folded her arms behind her back, air horn gripped tightly in her hand. She paced between the two of them, not quite looking at them. "You, Lola, have informed Lana of the need to repair your personal locomotive vehicle, correct?"

Receiving a nod from her Lisa continued. "However, Lana had failed to inform you that she is busy undertaking a different task before doing anything else thus creating this rift between the two of you."

She looked between the two of them before letting a sigh escape her lips. "Of course the only correct course of action here is to let Lana finish what she is doing and waiting till she is capable of repairing your vehicle. "

"WHAT! " Lola's eyes widened as she looked between the two of them, disbelief written all over her features. "But. But. But."

" In fact, any action regarding Lincoln that isn't negative should be taken with the highest priority over everything else. "

Lola face was the perfect picture of confusion and shock, her body had gone ridged as she stood before her immediate younger and older sisters. She watched in silence as the two of them focused into Lincoln's door, both trying to get the measuring tape to reach the top of the door frame.

"But, But." Lola stammered out, unable to grasp exactly what had just happened.

" The use of the word 'but' in substitute of your lack of understanding is insufficient for us to start assisting you, I suggest you go do something else my royally inclined sibling. "

Lola let out a growl, yet relented as she realised that she wasn't going to get anywhere with the two of them. Not until they were done with there own task and only when they wanted to do it. Now she couldn't practice her driving and waving, something she desperately needed to do. How else would she let admirers see her?

Slowly she stomped away. Each footfall sounded off a small thump as they connected with the carpet. She turned back to see Lisa writing down something on a scrap of paper as Lana rolled down the tape, a satisfied grin on her face. For a fleeting moment she thought that they were done but quickly remembered that Lana wanted to fix Lincoln's door not simply measure it once.

She growled again as she realised that she may need to wait several days till Lana would be free to fix her car, her anger bubbled inside her before she directed herself at the two of them again.

"Just so you know this is completely BULLSHIT! "

In an instant the present background noise of the house faded completely, the two at the end of the hallway snapped their attention to Lola with surprised and slightly fearful expressions. For a moment all was silent before the severity of her own actions caught up onto Lola. She heard the door behind her creak open slightly, almost menacingly.

"uh,oh." Her voice was but a whisper as she slowly turned around to look behind her.

Just outside of her room was Lori, phone in one hand and the most neutral of looks across her face. To anyone else it would look like she was unaffected by any event that transpired around her but to the girls it was a look that screamed run and prey for your life.

A mad Lori they could hide from, an upset Lori they could cheer up or leave alone, military mood Lori they could handle but this Lori, one that showed no emotion was the one they truly feared. The three of them could hear Bobby's voice come from her phone, calling out to Lori in confusion and questioning, without hesitating Lori hung up her phone and put it in her pocket.

"Uh, Oh."

Slowly Lori walked forwards, her eyes glancing between Lola, Lana and Lisa. The younger of the three decided the hide behind the eldest of them. Lisa peaked out behind Lana's shoulder, still very willing to see what would happen next but decided it would be best to do so behind someone else, just in case she needed a meat shield. At least that was how she justified it in her head.

Lola backed up as Lori drew closer, an almost unrestrained anger loomed in the elder girls eyes as they trailed between the three of them.

"Which. one. of. you. said. that? "

Lana and Lisa looked to Lori, then Lola, then each other. Silently the two to them came to the same decision and pointed a finger at Lola, although Lisa was shaking ever so slightly. Lori looked down the the princess, as if silently asking if they were telling the truth, for a moment she contemplated lying or passing blame but... This was not the Lori you wanted to anger or even try to get on her bad side.

Even though she felt betrayed by the other two she couldn't really blame them, she would have done the exact same thing in their place. Silently She nodded up at the eldest, fearful of what might happen next but terrified of how much worse it could get if she tried to lie her way out of it.

Just look at what happened to Lincoln when he lied.

Without a word Lori grabbed Lola by the wrist before dragging her towards the bathroom. Naturally, Lola put up some resistance to being pulled around but didn't offer too much of a fight. The younger twin even spotted Luna and Lucy peaking out of the rockers room, the door shutting as they passed.

Lori quickly dragged her into the bathroom where the door was slammed shut and locked behind them both. Without missing a beat Lori pulled the shower curtain around to allow access to the bath, without a word she picked Lola up and sat her down on the edge of the bathtub.

"Don't. Move." She pointed at Lola as she said this before turning towards the sink, opened the mirror and pulled some things from the top shelf.

In her hands were a single glass, an almost unused toothbrush and a nearly full bottle of liquid soap. Kiwi scented too.

As for Lola, she didn't dare try to move a muscle from where she had been placed. Even if the porcelain was extremely uncomfortable on her butt, she didn't dare try anything that could and would anger Lori further.

"I'm going to start this very simply Lola." Lori didn't look up from where she was focusing on putting the soap into the toothbrush.

"You're going to tell me what you did wrong. Right now."

" I... Uh... Swore. "

Lori hummed as she placed the bottle dowm, the glass left behind, as she moved right in front of Lola, practically blocking all form of escape. Not that she would try after all.

"Did you know we don't actually tolerate that kind of foul language in this house Lola?" Lori's voice came off blank, emotionless, so much so that it could give Lucy a run for her money. There was still an undertone of anger however.

"Yes."

" Then why did you do it? Hmm? Did you want to feel like a big girl Lola? Is that it, use all the big adult words? "

Lola squirmed slightly as she realised that she didn't have a response to give, she hadn't thought about what she was doing until it was already too late to stop herself. Seeing that she wasn't going to receive any type of response Lori knelt down, practically offering the toothbrush to the younger girl.

"Well, if your going to act like a 'big girl' then I'm going to punish you like one. And believe me, after today, you don't want to test me."

Although Lola took the toothbrush from her hand there was still one thing she had to say, even if she stuttered and trembled as she did so. " B-bu-But y-you let L-Lynn do I-it y-yester-day. "

For a moment Lori's face relaxed slightly, a slight hint of compassion showing through her blank stare.

"No. I didn't. I was too shocked last night to do anything." Her eyes regained the hardness they lost before she motioned to the toothbrush. Lola got the message right away as she tried to ease the brush to her mouth. She knew this was going to suck. "And I will be having words with Lynn later too. While our parents are being incompetent right now I will not allow this house to devolve into madness. Not with everything so crazy right now. Start brushing."

Lori stood, moving back to the sink where she filled up the glass up with water. With the corner of her eyes she watched as Lola put the brush in her mouth and began to slowly brush her mouth with it. Cringing at the taste and texture of the soap.

Truthfully this was only the fourth time that this punishment was being used in this house but everyone knew about it. The last time it was used was last year when Lynn let a swear drop at the dinner table when she started bad mouthing an opposing player. The second time was when Luna cursed to their mother for a slightly harsh treatment, the first time it was herself when she was bad mouthing Carol pringly, although that was years ago she still remembered it clearly and knew how bad it was.

She could even see the tears begin to accumulate in her younger sisters eyes but she knew she had to stick to her guns on this, this behaviour was unacceptable and had to be weeded out the moment it started, they couldn't have the younger ones going around swearing constantly.

She let Lola spit out soap when ever it made too many bubbles in her mouth but she made sure she kept brushing, when six minutes finally past she took the brush from her before shoving the glass of water into her hands. Lola didn't hesitate to bring in a mouthful to then immediately spit it out into the bathtub, where the rest of the soap had accumulated over the six minutes.

Lori wanted until she was done with rinsing her mouth before silently pulling her off the bath and then sitting down with her on her lap, with the younger girls back to her chest she rested her head atop of Lola's. Slowly she whispered apologies into her ear, causing the little girl to break down into sobs.

This was the last thing Lori had ever wanted to do to any of her siblings, but with her parents being so... Pathetic. She knew she had to take charge even more and do the things her parents wouldn't dare do. In fact, Lynn receiving this punishment was probably the last time any of them had been properly punished for bad behaviour. As much as she hated it, she needed to reinstate the punishments for EVERYONE, even if they hated her for doing so.

"I'm sorry Lori."

" I know Lola, I know. "

* * *

**A/N: Ok, first things first. Yes it's been ages, I'm sorry.**

**however I would like to explain myself quickly. I was writing a chapter for Moving in (my other story) when I hit a writers block, I decided to write this chapter in the meantime and just... Got slapped on the face by life.**

**Long story short, my sister has been kicked out and disowned and my mother is as sick as a dog, which unfortunately is a common thing with her. So I've been putting writing off for a Long While just so I can keep on top of my everyday to day life and make things easier for everyone.**

**I eventually just kinda... Forgot about my writing for a little bit then forced myself back into it and re-read everything and decided I should finish this chapter before completely restarting my Moving in chapter.**

**I was 3000 words in and had done nothing... Basically. So it needs a complete rewrite as it doesn't touch the subjects I originally wanted it too.**

**I'm unsure when the next chapter will be out, hopefully not anywhere near as long as this one took. Again sorry about that.**

**Enjoy.**

**QUICK NOTE: ALL CHAPTERS UP TO THIS ONE HAVE BEEN UPDATED WITH CORRECT SPELLING AND GRAMMAR.**

**I can not say I got it 100% perfect but it is a far cry better then what it was. I will now be moving on to fix the chapters for 'moving In'**


	19. Chapter 19

As far as Lincoln was concerned, today had been hectic. Between his unwanted late awakening, the morning rush, school and helping Ronnie Anne with her homework, Lincoln felt drained after all of it. This was good though, as it meant he was exhausting himself ready to go to sleep early, ready to wake up early the next morning.

In turn this would keep him away from the girls For longer and just maybe they would do something. He knew he couldn't hide away forever, nor could he ignore the girls forever either. Eventually one of them was going to try to earn back his favour, it wouldn't be right to ignore their attempts. Even if there was a chance that they wouldn't earn his forgiveness, he had to give them the chance to at least try.

As the white haired boy walked his way down his street he couldn't stop his stomach from churning, not out of hunger but paranoia. Bobby had come extremely close to discovering the truth around his predicament, something that he desperately didn't want to happen. It would only spell bad news if someone learned about what was going on at their home, they certainly wouldn't take it the same way as he was and the last thing he needed was everything going bust because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

There was more to it of course, with Bobby being Lori's girlfriend it was highly possible that he was asking her about his behaviour and if she wasn't concealing the truth - although it would be stupid not to - Then trouble would start soon.

Lincoln frowned as he thought of the eldest loud girl, he remembered that she wanted to talk with him but he wasn't sure if he was in the mood to listen to her at the moment. Then again he had been blowing her off for the past two weeks, he never really gave her much of a chance to say anything.

He had actually been putting off their talk for a long time, Lori had tried to initiate a conversation between the two of them shortly after he had started being the way he was and he had deflected it away.

Oh sure, he could keep doing it but that would get him nowhere. Lori would only keep trying to talk to him until she got fed up with him blocking her and forced a conversation to happen. In Lincoln's eyes it was better to have a conversation willingly over being forced.

And he might as well hear Lori out, it wasn't like he was going to instantly forgive her afterwards anyway. Sure there was the off chance that maybe... Just maybe he could end up doing that and as much as he was conflicting with himself over it. He knew that if he did end up forgiving her, it wouldn't have been forced but done with reason.

Stepping up to the front door of his home he took a moment to listen to the ruckus and general noise of the house. It sounded just like any other day, Loud.

He opened the door and stepped inside, giving the downstairs area a quick glance over revealed both Luan and Leni on the couch watching TV. He could hear Luna playing music from her room, Lucy was nowhere in sight - as usual - and... That was It actually. He couldn't see or hear anyone else. Not Lynn, not Lori not even little Lily.

Realising that he had been standing in the doorway for too long he made a brisk walk to and up the stairs. He made a quick visit to his room where he dropped his bag off before deciding it was best to just deal with Lori now, like ripping a band aid off quickly just to get it done and over with.

Oddly enough none of the girls were present in the hallway, usually there was at least one but right now there were none. Weird.

Standing outside Lori's room Lincoln raised his hand before stopping, he wanted to walk away, to not do this but... He had to. Knocking the door twice he lowered his hand, for a moment all was silent - minus Luna's music - before the door opened to reveal Lori's face. Which quickly changed into one of surprise at seeing the white haired boy outside her door.

Opening the door further she gestured for him to enter, he did so with a slight hint of hesitation. He was, after all, entering the dragons den.

It came as a surprise to Lincoln when he saw Lola laid down on Leni's bed, reading one of Lori's many fashion magazines. It wasn't everyday you saw the two of them hang out, especially of their own free will.

"Lola." The elder girl spoke, gaining the princesses attentions immediately. She looked up to her eldest sister before noticing Lincoln just next to her. "Can you give me and Lincoln some privacy, I need to have a word with him.

Lola opened her mouth, ready to say something about that but quickly clamped her mouth shut. Getting off the bed slowly she stopped just next to Lori before looking up to her with somewhat pleading eyes. "Can I take this with me?"

Lincoln only just realised that Lola was still holding onto the magazine she had been reading.

Lori smiled down to Lola. "Sure, go ahead and if you need or want another one just come and ask ok?"

"Thank you."

Lincoln watched as Lola slowly walked out the room, Lori shut the door behind the younger girl before facing towards Lincoln.

Lincoln himself was somewhat surprised by Lola's actions. Not once during that exchange did the princess put up a fight, she didn't plead for more time, demand things go her way, neither did she argue over the sudden change in her own arrangement. That was what surprised the boy, never before had he thought that that was possible.

He snapped back into focus when he saw Lori take a seat on the end of her own bed, deciding to follow suit he sat on the end of Leni's bed, facing towards Lori who was holding a bittersweet smile on her lips. He didn't say anything as he looked at her, _she_ wanted to talk to him. There was no need for him to start the conversation for her.

It took a moment for the eldest girl to realise this, her smile dropped from her face as she looked down at her knees. She let in a breath before slowly breathing it out. She steeled her nerves before looking back up to the boy across from her.

"I'm sorry." She noticed when Lincoln raised an eyebrow at her, his face contouring between several emotions before it fell back into a passive look. Taking that as an initiative she continued. "I know it's not what you want to hear from me, nor does it change anything but I want... No," Lori face scrunched up as she tried to keep her face to remain neutral. "I need you to know that I really am sorry for everything that's happened to you."

" And I don't mean, " she used her arms to gesture to him. "Recently, I mean _EVERYTHING_. I've been a sh-" Lori quickly placed a fist over her mouth to muffle what she was going to say. Lincoln gave her an odd look but didn't press her, the elder girl took a breath before starting again. "I've been a horrible sister, to you, to everyone. For so long I've had the responsibility to look after those younger than me, I've had to guide them as they grew up. "

Her eyes darted to his face, trying and succeeding to lock eyes with him. "Then you were born and... I don't know what happened. " Lori paused as she thought on what was the best way to word what she wanted to say, when she made up her mind she took in another calming breath. "One day I was doting all over you, the next... I was making you take up my responsibilities. Like they had always been yours and... I don't know why I did that."

The silence from Lincoln was starting to get to her, it wasn't helping her feel any better about her situation. She had spent so long going over her speech in her head that she thought she had it down perfectly by now, that wasn't the case like she had thought it would have been. Now it was all crumbling before her.

"I know you hate me Lincoln, don't deny it... I am your 'worst sister ever' after all." She let a small chuckle escape her , trying to ease the tension between then two of them, hopefully. It didn't help dull the pang of pain she felt in her chest though. Ever since she had found the letter that Lincoln wrote about her she had felt a little distance between the two of them.

"I don't expect anything to come from all of this but... I want you to understand that I really, really regret everything that's happened." Slowly she rung her hands together , her nervousness beginning to build. "I should have done more, I should have stopped everyone from going so far, I should have stood up to our... My parents." Here last two words were spoken far quieter than normal. She had recognised that Lincoln didn't look up the Rita or Lynn Senior as the parental figures they should have been, she wasn't going to ignore that.

"But I didn't, all because I was angry over some silly golf clubs and a little lie. I'm sorry."

Lincoln's brows furrowed, his lips pursed and a look of confusion crossed over his face. "You."

" You knew I was lying? "

Lori's eyes widened, she hadn't said about that little detail yet. She wasn't sure how she was going to tell him yet, now the cat was out of the bag and she needed to deal with it. Slowly she nodded at him, hardly making eye contact at all, as if she was afraid of his reaction.

"After you started saying you were bad luck us girls came together to discuss it, it didn't take long for me, Luna and Luan to realise that you had lied to all of us and we... Were not happy about it."

" When we realised you did it to get time to yourself we... Were angry and... Hurt I guess. " Lori could feel her hands ball into fists, not out of anger towards Lincoln but frustration over how stupid they had all been. "We didn't understand at the time that you really needed rest... I don't think any of the others know either but... I thought about what it was like to be in your shoes for a day and..."

Lori brought in a breath before forcefully exhaling it out.

"I can't imagine doing all that you do, not to mention the week you had had just before you went about it all."

She couldn't perfectly recall the whole week but she could remember that there were multiple events that happened during it, Lola had a pageant, Luan had a birthday party, Luna found herself a small gig to perform at and... There was probably a lot more than just that. However, just because there were some events didn't mean Lincoln rested between each one, no, he was always doing stuff for any one of the girls at any given time. Being a model for Leni, a spar partner for Lynn, a butler for Lola, a test subject for Lisa and even a babysitter for Lily.

Lori couldn't believe it had taken this long for her to realise just how swamped Lincoln was, there she was complaining about partaking in one of Luan's parties and Lincoln was basically doing that three times a day, if not more. Everyday.

"So... Yeah, we... Didn't realise what we had been doing and were doing to you."

" If I had known, I would not have made you go to my events and maybe I might have been able to get you out of others but... I didn't, cause I didn't know or care to think about how you felt. "

Lincoln eyes darted downwards to his feet, questioning and curiosity written on his face... Along with a hint of annoyance. He could accept Lori's reasoning on its own but something stuck out like a sore thumb.

"Lori," The elder girl look up to the boy, their eyes meeting once more. " if you knew I was lying, why did you treat me like I was... " Lincoln hesitated for a moment, not really wanting to say the fabled words. "...bad luck ." Those last two words came with a hint of bitterness and Lori couldn't blame him for that.

Lori bit her lip as she thought of the best way to explain the situation, to where the real fault laid but she didn't want to come off like she was blaming the others. A tense silence, dragged on between them before Lori started again, this time a little cautious with what she was saying.

"That's a little difficult to explain, so... I want you to listen to me carefully and let me tell you everything, ok?" She saw the conflict cross over Lincoln's face but She also felt a hint of relief flow through her when She saw him nod.

Slowly she started to explain how the night of their meeting went, how each of them told the others of his lies, how they had managed to piece together Lincolns motives from that alone. She went on to explain how they all had decided they needed to punish him for lying to them, for lying to family. Lori explained how Lisa, Luan and Lynn went off to discuss the ideal punishment and how she didn't stop to think if she should have supervised them as they did so. She explained how they got their parents on board with the idea and even mentioned the change they made to the whole idea and how each of them could treat him. Lori explained how Lincoln wasn't supposed to have gone outside but didn't have an explanation as to why he did, she even explained that their parents were supposed to have spoken to him on the first day he came back inside but each of them thought the other one had.

As for his furniture? She didn't have a clue where it went or who had come up with the idea to get rid of it.

By the time she was done telling the story Lincoln was visibly shaking, his hands were clenched tight and his knuckles were turning as white as his hair. His face lit up in anger while His eyes darted around the room as he tried to process what he had been told. As much as he didn't want to believe it, as much as a wanted to deny it, it made a lot more sense to punish someone for lying then it did to punish someone for being bad luck.

But the extent at which they went was just too far, it didn't help to know that his parents were fully behind the whole thing, backing it up the whole way. As for the girls? There was a lot of mixed emotions swirling inside him, he wasn't sure if he should scream or cry. Slowly Lincoln tried to calm himself down by attempting to even out his breathing, doing his best to focus on other things then what he had just been told.

Recognising that he needed a moment to himself, Lori kept herself quiet. As much as she wanted to do something to help him through this moment she also knew that any type of action could be deemed as intrusive or negative. Instead she let him go through his thoughts on his own.

When he finally managed to calm himself down enough that he wouldn't get heavily emotional he turned to Lori with a look of annoyance . "That's just so... Stupid." His mouth opened and closed as he tried to organise his mind so he could say what he wanted. After a moment he got up from his seat and began to walk away.

Fearing that Lincoln would walk away from her Lori stood up, just as Lincoln got to the door he turned around and headed back her way. His hands where clutched to several clumps of his hair as he pulled at them, it took Lori a moment to realise that he was just pacing back and forth around her room. Realising this she took her seat again.

"I can't believe this," Lincoln's words were but a whisper as he walked up the gap between the two beds. "I... I get that lying is what got me in trouble but... Did you have to go so far? "

Lori opened her mouth to say that no, they didn't need to go that far, before she stopped herself. Lincoln had let her talk her mouth off for ages, it was time she opened her ears to him. It was highly likely that he had some very... Choice things to say about the real situation.

"If you were all so upset with me for lying, why didn't you just confront me? Why didn't you just say you knew the truth? I probably would have dropped the entire act right then and there if I knew I couldn't get away with it but... You didn't. "

The loud boy shook his head as he tried to understand everyone else's reasoning, so far that had proven more difficult then he had thought. Her looked to Lori as he paced, seeing the calm aura in her eyes he felt his shoulders relax slightly. As if she had just promised to keep everything he would say a secret, it was possible she had.

"Why didn't you just... Take away my comics? My toys? Ground me? " He shook his head again, it would be impossible for him to fully understand the girls. No matter how much time he spend with them. "That would have made a bigger difference then... All this." His hands came off his head and gestured wildly to the door, indicating to everything that had happened beyond it previously.

"I mean... I know I'm not perfect Lori, I'm no saint. " Lori raised an eyebrow at those words, questioning where exactly they where coming from, but she didn't interfere and decided to let him talk instead. "I'm deceitful, manipulative, secretive and at times I can be really selfish and self centered at the worst of times but... Did all this have to happen? " He pulled his hands away from his head, some loose strands of hair fell of his fingers as he did so.

"I mean, any old punishment would have worked, just telling me you knew would have been enough but all of you just... Went through with this. " Lincoln's chest began to rise and fall faster, a sign that he was beginning to get worked up. "Did you do this because you wanted to get back at at me for everything I've ever done?"

" Lincoln... " Lori waited until the white haired boy looked at her, seeing the conflict grow in his eyes was something that pulled at her heartstrings. "You have never done anything... That bad." Admittedly even she couldn't say he was perfect but who was?

In the end no-one was perfect .

"Yes I have!" Lori blinked at his sudden shout, finding it surprising that all of this was suddenly coming from the boy. "I forced Lana out of her comfort zone so we could win tickets to dairyland for my own gain, I recorded all of your embarrassing moments to try to win a contest for a stupid trophy, I took advantage of you girls trying to convince me to pick to go to either the beach or dairyland, I tired to organise you girls so I could have the 'sweet spot' in vanzilla and... " Lincoln paused as he took several deep breaths trying to lower his heart rate and calm himself back to normal.

"So I can understand why you girls would want a little pay back for all of that." The boy shook his head a little in an attempt to rid his mind of his thoughts.

Although Lori was surprised to hear all of this out of the boy, especially so suddenly and seemingly without prompt, a moment of thought help her to piece together his words and find out exactly where he was coming from. It seems somewhere during her explanation of their meeting Lincoln had connected several dots between his, not quite selfless, acts and how they had reacted to his latest scheme.

That small connection opened an entire new level of understanding for Lori and she could see how Lincoln put those two things together. The way he now saw it was that the girls plan was a form of revenge against every little plan, ploy, plot and scheme that Lincoln had ever come up with to try to get his own way or to make things easier for himself.

Lori realised that perhaps there was a need for a shift in their conversation... And perhaps, a little rant would work too. "Lincoln. " The boy looked to her as he walked between the beds again, his hands wringing together as his thoughts ran rampant.

Lori patted the bed next to her, signaling for him to sit next to her. She could immediately see the conflict cross over his face, she could tell that a part of him really didn't want to sit next to her but the other part was somewhat curious on the offer.

In the end his curiosity won out and he took a seat on the bed next to her, a large gap between the two of them but she didn't mind. When she thought he was comfortable enough she looked to him with a warm expression.

"Lincoln, I want you to tell me everything that is wrong. I don't mean now or with this situation, I mean everything that has annoyed, infuriated, upset and angered you that we girls are responsible for. Can you do that? "

Lincoln opened his mouth to say something but after a moment he went slack jaw and his mouth hung open, Lori could see the thought process in his eyes. The way he questioned what she had said and like a stab in the heart she realised that he didn't trust her, for all she knew he thought she was guiding him into a trap.

"It's okay Lincoln." She placed her hand in the space between them, a calm encouraging look written on her features. "I won't judge, argue or get mad. I want you just tell me what you think. Maybe start with something you don't like hmm?"

With the way she was looking at him, the calm reassurance that she meant every word she said and with the way her eyes sparked with truth, he couldn't help but watch as his walls crumbled down around him.

"I... I don't like the fighting." He spoke in a whisper, afraid that just maybe she had been tricking him into letting his guard down. When nothing happened He felt a small urge to continue. "You girls always fight over the same things, 'that's my make up' or 'that's my space' and a lot of other pointless stuff really. "

He took a moment to look up to Lori, half expecting to see a disappointed look across her face but saw nothing but a look that encouraged him to continue.

"I can usually deal with it if I just hear it happening but most of the time you girls come to me for my opinion, like I'm supposed to know who owns what or which option is better even though I don't know a thing about the subject or topic. "

The boy tugged at the bottom of his shirt, trying to distract himself for a moment. A few more things came to mind and he felt like he had to get them off his chest while he had the chance.

"Then there's the fact that I'm never left alone to begin with, I can't have five minutes to myself to read a comic or to rest and relax between helping everyone out. None of you girls seem to stop to think that maybe I've been running around non-stop all day. That I'm tired and need just as much, if not more rest then you lot do. "

Lori watched as a fire lit up in his eyes and she couldn't be more glad that one did, as it looked like he was getting the confidence to speak up a little bit more as he got angered.

"Not to mention that no-one actually asks for help anymore, you just come along and drag me away to do your thing with zero benefit to me but when I want your help I have to make a five page slide show, buy you a box of chocolates, do several chores and/or tasks for you before you even _consider_ the idea to help me and... I'm sick of that. "

Lori's mind fogged at the mention of chocolates but she shook those thoughts away so she could listen to the boy speak. What He was saying was far more important then her favourite treat.

"I'm sick of having to stoop so low as to scheme against you for my own gain, is it so hard for me to have something I want without having to do something drastic to get it? And even then you girls ruin it by getting in the way. Like when I went to get the zombie bran cereal and you lot promised to help and then didn't. "

Lori bit her lip at that memory, she had only wanted to go to the store to visit Bobby at his new job there. She wasn't entirely sure what the rest got up to because she didn't bother to pay attention to them.

"Then, when I was done, all you girls got us kicked out by throwing me into a stack of cans all because I earned, **earned **some cereal and I got the full blame for it. Yeah you got me the cereal the next day but that didn't change the fact that mo-... Rita instantly blamed me and didn't lift a finger against any of you. "

A scowl etched its way onto his face as he remembered that, he crossed his arms over his chest as she looked to the floor.

"It really goes to show how much you care for me... Especially since none of you decided to speak up about it."

He let a big breath run out his mouth before he spoke a little bitterly.

"You girls always get away with everything and I get blamed for things I didn't even do or know about. And then there's the stupid sister fight protocol. "

Lori opened her mouth to debunk that little statement but stopped when she saw the look of paranoia in his eyes. He must have thought that he had - metaphorically - poked the sleeping dragon. Instead she decided to try to get him to explain himself.

"What do You mean by that Lincoln." She spoke in such a calm tender voice that anyone else would have assumed she was incapable of harming someone.

"You girls understand it, your parents understand it, your friends understand it and even Clyde understands it but I don't. I was never told about it, yet you all act like I purposely defy the rules on purpose to annoy you. Then all of you keep barging into my room and kicking me out of it to 'keep the peace ' and then complain when _surprise_ I want my room back. "

"What hurt then most that day was that after I came back you girls were fine and then shifted the blame to me by saying that you calmed down after I had left... like I was the sole reason you lot were fighting in the first place. "

The two of them sat there in silence after he was done. Guilt quickly crept its way into Lori's heart after she heard that, she had never thought how it had affected him or how everything looked from his point of view. Now that she had, she felt like she had failed him as a sister.

"Is there anything else you want to say? "

For the first time in a while the two of them locked eyes for a moment before Lincoln shook his head, slowly he breathed in and out trying to get himself back to normal. This talk hadn't gone the way he expected it to but Now that he had said all that he felt... Lighter.

The boy got up from his seat on Lori's bed before making his way to the door, he turned back to her at the last moment, just as his hand touched the door handle.

"Lori, although I haven't forgiven you yet... Thanks for letting me get that off my chest."

" Any time Lincoln, remember you can always come to me to talk, ok? "

He nodded to her before opening her door and walking out, shutting it behind him as he went. As soon as the door was fully shut, Lori slumped her way down onto her bed, laying on her back as she stared up at the ceiling. Her mind was swamped with the massive amount of information she had been given and she couldn't help but feel like she was massively responsible for a lot of his troubles.

She decided, right then and there that the sister fight protocol needed to go... Permanently.

* * *

Lincoln stepped into his room a little lighter then he had felt in a long while, he never thought that a simple talk would have amounted to so much.

It really goes to show what could have happened had his parents actually talked to him after he had come back in, even if he would have been in a bad mood afterwards.

Knowing that he had quite some time before dinner would be done he decided it would be best to kick back and relax with a little drawing, it wouldn't hurt to put forth a little progress on his own work. And just maybe, if he wanted to, he could actually shown it to Lori. He wasn't sure why he felt like doing it but he felt like he knew he could do it, that's all that really mattered at the moment.

Pulling his bag closer to him didn't take notice that the zip had been undone.

As he opened his bag he began to move around a few things. After a moment his face dropped and he began to look through his bag more frantically. Quickly, after he couldn't fine it, he dumped his bag out onto the floor, his breathing increased as he began to hyperventilate.

His notebook was missing.

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, I'm leaving you all on that cliffhanger. Why? Because I can.**

**Also as a side note, I went back through all the previous chapters and updated them to remove spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and other mistakes as best I could. Why didn't any of you tell me I had left so many mistakes mixed in? I would have acted on it sooner. I won't say it's 100% perfect but I think I got most of the mistakes out of there.**

**We well, have fun figuring out where Lincoln's book went. Muhahahaha.**


	20. Chapter 20

With haste Lincoln began to move everything within his room around, his empty bag was thrown into the corner, he threw the many blankets that were on his mattress off of it and into a massive heap behind him. He practically launched his toys off of the small ottoman table that he had placed by the wall.

Yet nothing he did helped him to find his quarry.

In a last ditch effort he lifted the mattress up until it leaned against the wall, his notebook was not there either, panic began to quickly flow through the boy, his hands came up to his head as they grabbed onto his hair. Pulling it in his frustration.

There was no way it had disappeared on its own, he was sure- No, certain that he had it when he was leaving Ronnie's place. He definitely had it when he left as he had checked to make sure he didn't leave anything behind when he started his way home. So he knew it wasn't there or at school.

Yet it was gone. No longer was it in his bag, yet it couldn't have been his sister's, none of them even knew he had the damn thing. Not even his own friends knew about it, only he did.

The boy took one last glance around the room, as if the action alone would reveal his missing item to him. When he realised that his book was - in fact - not in here, he took one rough breath in before turning and trying to open his door, the blankets that he had moved just moments ago obstructing him slightly.

When he got through the space in the door he stopped just beyond the door frame. Where was he supposed to look? It could have been anywhere, yet it shouldn't have been anywhere but his bag. He couldn't just go tearing the house apart looking for something.

Of course that's what a person's thoughts would be like if they were using logic and reasoning, however, cause he was in a near hysterical state Lincoln was not thinking clearly and therefore was not thinking Logically. In his mind he had to find that book NOW, before something happened to it and most especially before one of the girls found it first.

Without a rational thought in his mind he took off for the stairs, passing by Lisa's open door which with a small glance revealed Lana, Lisa and Lily to be present within. He didn't see his book so he moved on, his eyes glanced down the hallway hoping, preying that it would just be here, that it had fallen out his bag when he walked through earlier.

He didn't see it, so he kept his course set for the stairs, if anywhere it would be downstairs right? It had to be, it wouldn't be anywhere else. It couldn't be anywhere else.

Just as he was a few steps away from the stairs, Lori emerged from her room, a thoughtful and inquisitive look across her face. That is, until she saw Lincoln and instantly recognised the sheer panic that was written across his face. Just a few minutes ago Lincoln had left her room looking better then ever, now it looked like he was afraid for his life. She could feel her big sister instincts kick in as she abandoned all other thoughts.

"Lincoln." She started to speed walk towards him in a non-aggressive manner. "What's wrong?"

He regarded her presence for but a moment before he turned and descended to the lower level of the house. He knew, Lori couldn't have had it, he had been with her near enough the entire time he had been back... Scratch that he HAD been with her the entire time.

Lori quickly followed her brother down the stairs, worry pooling its way into her gut as she tried for the life of her to figure out what had happened in the sparse few minutes they had been apart. He couldn't have gone anywhere or done anything that could have resulted in this.

And that's what worried her.

Lincoln hit the bottom step with a thud, drawing the attention of Leni and Lola, who were both on the couch and Luan who was sitting at the dinning room table going through her time table for all her upcoming parties. Lincoln didn't waste a second, he turned towards the living room, darting towards the shelving filled with books and began to rifle through them all, knocking a few down to make more space to see.

"Lincoln." Lori turned away from the stairs watching the boy move from the shelving to the TV unit after he had knocked one of the family photo albums to the ground. He spared no time in looking under it before rapidly turning around to look under the coffee table.

Nothing.

"Is everything alright Linky?" The boy paid no attention to Lola as he got up and paced his way to the dining room. Leni, Lola and Lori following suit, each trying to get him to slow down.

Luan stood up from her chair when the boy entered the room, his eyes glanced over the sheets of paper and single small notebook she possessed. Too small, not his. Nothing underneath. It not there.

"Lincoln?" The jokester watched as he made a harsh move for the shelves filled with their many board games. The boy did not pause for a second as he began to lift and move them about, even going so far as to throw some to the floor, which resulted in their contents to go flying out the box.

He was about to make a move for the kitchen when he felt two hands grab onto his shoulders, before he could do anything he was spun around, only to be met with the concerned face of Lori along with the confused expressions of Luan, Lola and Leni.

"Lincoln, what's wrong?"

As the boys eyes focused onto the elder loud girl her words registered in his ears. His breathing hitched slightly as he realised that he had drawn attention to the one thing he did not want attention drawn towards. His eyes shot around the room trying to find something, anything to place a blame on. He did not need them to know about his drawings, he did not need another obstacle to get in his way.

Before anyone could say anything, the front door opened. A moment passed before Lynn stepped through, holding up a small bag that probably contained some of her sports equipment. She was stretching her other arm up high as she walked towards the stairs. Stopping as she saw all of them and the scattered board game pieces. She stopped as she looked over each person, curiosity growing within her.

"What's going on here?" A few of the girls turned to her, Luan was about to say something but stopped herself short... She really didn't have a clue. "You know what? I don't care. As long as it doesn't involve me." With that the jock dumped her bag down by the stairs and walked into the kitchen. Leni frowned at her, as did Lola but neither made any moves to stop her from walking away.

"Lincoln." Lori's hands gently squeezed Lincoln's shoulders , she held just enough force to comfort but not enough to keep him in place. If he were to try to run, Lori would not try to stop him. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. Do you understand?"

As Lincoln's eyes finally fixed onto hers, he couldn't help but feel his walls crumbled again. She held such a... Concerned look that he couldn't fight against it. Much like how he couldn't fight off their puppy dog eyes. He opened his mouth for a moment before shutting it again. He wasn't sure how to say what he wanted to say.

"I lost something." Lori blinked as she tried to hear him whisper, after a moment she let a calm smile adorn her face.

"Well, I'm sure we can find it. What are you looking for?"

Lincoln's eyes darted up to hers again before glueing themselves to the floor, there was no way out of this... At least not in any way that he liked.

"A book."

" A book? " Lori repeated, her eyebrows raising up. "What sort o-" whatever Lori was going to say was interrupted by everything that would happen next.

"LYNN!"

Everyone flinched at the sudden shout that echoed throughout the house, each of them where able to identify who had shouted.

Luna.

Before anyone could register anything else the purple rocker came stomping down the stairs, a look of pure fury on her face. She stopped for a second to scan the living room before turning her way towards the group. Spotting them she walked closer until nothing but the table separated them.

"Where's Lynn?"

The group of four girls looked to one another, concerned over the normally mellow rocker being so livid suddenly. They weren't sure if they should have answered her question in fear that something could or would happen to their sporty sister.

Lincoln however, had his eyes stuck on what Luna was holding in her left hand. An A4 sized black notepad that had his name written on the corner... His notebook that contained all of his drawings.

Seeing an opportunity to help her sister Leni joyfully pointed to the kitchen. "She's in the kitchen."

" Leni! " Lori, Luan and Lola all exclaimed at the same time as Luna began a fast paced walk towards the room in which she had been guided towards.

Lincoln's eyes remained on his notebook, a small urge to go retrieve it ran through him, causing him to tug at Lori's grip subconsciously. The elder girl quickly spun back round to him, following his eyes she too saw the book in Luna's hands. Quickly putting two and two together she released Lincoln before moving her way around him and started to make her way towards Luna, who had already rounded the corner into the kitchen.

As the elder loud girl drew closer she could hear two of the rooms three occupants conversing... Although she used that term extremely lightly.

"Hey, what the hell Luna!?" Lori made a mental note to wash out Lynn's mouth too, even if she might lose a finger when doing so.

" I'll tell you what the hell, Mate. " Lori could hear shuffling paper before she heard a dull thunk.

As she rounded the corner she caught sight of Luna holding the smaller girl by the collar of her shirt against the fridge. Lincoln's book was open, displaying a page to the Jock.

"How about you explain this to me before I have to beat it out of you."

" Girls! Stop fighting now. " Their father yelled at them, his back turned to them as he was busy chopping and frying up vegetable for his goulash dinner.

"What am I supposed to say Luna? I haven't seen that before."

Lori moved close enough to be able to place a hand on the rockers shoulder, moving a little bit more offered her the chance to do the same to Lynn.

Lincoln, Leni, Lola and Luan all crowded the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. The girls watched in mute confusion while Lincoln looked on in fear, he had a feeling he knew exactly which drawing Luna was showing Lynn. And he did not like it one bit.

"Alright you two that's enough." Lori tried to push Luna away but too no avail , the rockers grip was too strong at the moment. Lori looked towards their father, frowning as she realised he wasn't even paying attention to them. She had a feeling that if Lincoln tried to do this to someone else they would be all over him in a heartbeat.

Luna herself paid little mind to Lori as she stared deep into Lynn's eyes. "I don't care if you haven't seen it before, I want to know if this is true."

Wanting to resolve the situation quickly Lori tried to look at the book, hoping to gain an understanding of this dispute , especially since it seemed very one sided at the moment. Unfortunately, she couldn't see anything from where she was.

"It's a drawing, just because something has been drawn it doesn't mean it happened, people draw stupid comics all the time, they're not real. "

Realising that this was going to get very heated very fast Lori dove her arms between the two of them, trying to forcefully pull them apart while also giving Lynn the space she needed to breath. "Luna let go of Lynn and give me Lincoln's book, he's been tearing up the house trying to find it."

Hearing Lincoln's name Lynn's expression changed, in an instant she grabbed Luna's hand and twisted her wrist enough to cause a considerate amount of pain, forcing her to release her hold of the jock.

squirming her way between Lori and the fridge she made a brisk walk towards the living room, opting to stay away from the rest of her siblings.

Luna recovered from the slight pain before sidestepping around Lori, who was trying to keep her from advancing. She didn't make it there steps before the eldest loud girl was in front of her again. She looked up to Lynn's retreating form before shaking her head.

"You're only running cause you know it's true Lynn."

That caused the jock to Stop in her place for a moment before she turned back to the rocker with a look of pure fury on her face. Luna held up the book past Lori's head, stopping her from seeing it -unintentionally - and giving Lynn a full look at it.

"Look at this picture Lynn, look at it hard and good and tell me, to my face that this is wrong. Cause I'm far more inclined to believe this, to believe Lincoln, over you."

"Luna," Lori took hold of Luna's shoulder, giving her a little shake. "Give Lincoln his book back, then we can talk this out... Like we're supposed to. "

Luna looked to Lori with a look of barely restraint anger, Lori could see the conflict grow in her eyes. For a second she looked back over to Lynn before she suddenly started to move backwards while raising her arm.

The next few moments happened in slow motion for all of those who had been watching from the doorway, at some point Lucy had silently joined them.

As Luna's hand rose up, Lori instinctively moved away to the side, during the few seconds that Luna had looked to Lori, Lynn had stalked forwards. She had swung her arm towards the upheld book.

As each second passed by in the span of an hour, Luna's hand had risen the book to just above her eye height, Lynn's hand had roughly clawed at the book, in some attempt to grab at it. As Lynn's hand moved away, having been unsuccessful, multiple pages fell out of the book towards the floor. Some dropped right to the floor still connected to one another by the binding, others floated away for a moment before flattening onto the ground.

Time returned to normal as Lynn reached up again and grabbed a hold of the book by the bottom, Luna was holding it by the top.

Lincoln watched in horror at the two quickly fell into a tug of war match, causing the binding to come loose even more.

"Girls stop!" Lori tried to separate the two of them, as much as she wanted to just grab the book out of there hands one look at Lincoln left her conflicted, he was clearly struggling to deal with the drama that was happening before him.

Sadly nothing got through to the two fighting females and in a last ditch effort to get the book released from her assailants grip, Luna kicked one of her legs out. By pure reaction alone Lynn relaxed her grip on the book to be able to jump back out of her sisters range.

The sudden imbalance of forces caused the rocker to go tumbling to the ground, her grip on the book lost, it went flying towards the cooker. The notebook landed in the space between two of the frying pans, the open lit flames below them began to burn away at the paper.

with extreme speed befitting of a cook, Lynn senior grabbed a hold of the burning parchment before dumping it in the sink, where he doused it in water until it was soaked thoroughly. Afterwards he turned to the girls, both Luna and Lori held looks of surprise while Lynn looked partially upset yet, notably relieved.

The girls near Lincoln heard him gasp when he saw his book being thrown into the sink. Those around him had no idea How to react to this situation, they didn't have a clue as to what exactly had transpired.

"Dad!" Luna lifted herself from her spot on the floor, she rushed to the sink where she pushed her father away before reaching in and grabbing the ruined notebook. The soggy pages all clung to one another, after a moment of being suspended the weight of the water caused the pages to rip off and drop into the sink again in a wet blob.

Their father cringed at the sight. "oh, sorry rockstar. I'll get you a new book tomorrow. Did you have anything important on it."

Luna bristled at those words, her body turned to her father, her shoulders squared out as she looked him in the eye. "That wasn't mine, that was Lincoln's."

The father of eleven turned back to his vegetables. "So it wasn't anything important then."

" DAD! " Both Lori and Luna shouted at him at the same time.

"Luna chill." The rocker turned to the Jock with a level of intense fury, if looks could kill, Lynn would be dead. "It's just a book, filled with stupid, pathetic, worthless, useless drawings. That's all it is, that's all it ever was. "

From the doorway the girls turned to Lincoln when they heard him sniff, those that could see his face noted that there were a few tears brimming in the corner of his eyes. His breathing went ridged and his eyes darted between each of the scattered drawings. Talking note of his actions from the other side of the room, Lori slowly stepped closer to him. A hand reaching out to try to grab his attention.

"Lincoln?"

" I knew it. " the boy spoke in a whisper so quiet that those around him hardly heard him say it at all. Before anyone could do anything else the boy quickly spun away and barged his way through everyone who was present, from where they stood they could hear the stairs go before a door was slammed shut.

With a growl Luna launched herself at Lynn grabbing her by the throat and one of her hands before pinning her to the wall, the jocks free hand grabbing at the hand around her throat.

"Look what you did." Lynn shrunk under the intense gaze of her elder sister, even though she tried to stand tall and firm.

The youngest two girls present, Lola and Lucy, slowly moved into the kitchen. Lola picked up a loose page that fell close to her while Lucy moved very quickly to collect the rest that had survived the ordeal.

As Lola looked over the page she couldn't help but notice that it was the same paper as the scrunched up ball she had found a few days ago. When she turned the paper the right way round she gasped in awe at the drawing. It was one of herself, dressed in a very beautiful dress adorned with fine jewelry, she was even sitting atop a throne holding a staff in her hand that had a very large diamond on top.

It wasn't just that either, the entire background was just... Exquisite. A beautifully drawn room that seemed to adorn only the finest of draps and decorations. It really helped that Lincoln had caught her good side too.

From behind her both Luan and Leni looked over her shoulder, catching a sight of the drawing for themselves.

"Whoa." Luan for one was speechless at the sheer detail she was seeing. She was no artist and what few sketches she drew for her pranks were barely identifiable with her drawing skills. "Looks like Lincoln's got a really _drawn_ in skill, right Lola. " Still Luan managed to find a way to stick one of her puns in.

As usual Lola groaned at it while Leni got confused for a moment, everyone else was too focused on what had just happened.

"Hey! What's going on in here!?" Each of the girls flinched at the voice of their mother , the woman in question strolled in through the living room doorway, a scowl etched onto her face when she saw Luna holding Lynn by the throat.

"Luna let go of your sister, now. " Reluctantly Luna released her. At first the jock tried to walk away. "Lynn, stay right there young lady, now who's going to tell me what just happened? "

None of the girls said anything for a while, until Lori decided it was best someone said something. So after getting her mother's attention she started from where it all began. She decided to omit her and Lincoln's talk as she felt that was more between the two of them. Lori explained how Lincoln seemed partially distressed and was frantically searching for something, how he wouldn't say what it was in detail and how Luna had come screeching through the house after the Jock with the item Lincoln was looking for in tow.

She explained what she saw the two of them do and what ultimately happened to the book, where she pointed out it's final and current resting place.

"The only thing I don't know is... How did you get it Luna? " During the entire explanation, each of those present listened, although Lynn senior kept his eyes on the food he was trying to cook.

The rocker shifted slightly as she brought her hands up to say something, however when she opened her mouth nothing came out. During the rockers silence, Rita had crossed her arms and started tapping her foot, expecting her to give an answer.

"It's my fault." After flinching slightly , each of them turned to Lucy, who was holding a small stack of paper in her arms. "I stole it from Lincoln's room when he left it in there earlier... I had found a discarded drawing a few days ago and... I wanted to see more of them, I showed them to Luna because... In thought she would have liked them too. "

The small goth kicked her feet against the floor, nervous that she would get in a lot of trouble. "But we found some... Upsetting drawings." Despite not being able to see what her daughter's face was like, Rita knew that Lucy was severely hurt by what she had found and with motherly concern growing over her other emotions she relaxed her stance and took a kneel before her, placing one hand on her shoulder.

"What did you find Lucy?"

Silently the goth turned to Luna, who nodded down to her. Slowly Lucy flipped through the drawings she had until coming across the one that Luna had tried to shove in Lynn's face, it had survived by being ripped out first.

Rita turned the picture around to look at it while Lucy dug into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled drawing she had found days ago.

Her breathing hitched as she saw what was drawn.

on the paper was two people, Lynn Jr. And Lincoln. Both were at the top of the stairs of their home, she could recognise it anywhere. Lincoln was cowering slightly with his arms raised up while her daughter was brandishing a bat against him. The girls posture made it easy to see that she intended to swing, at her baby boy no less. The crumpled drawing hurt her even more though. Seeing Lincoln sat in an empty room all by his lonesome while the girls cheered each other on in the hallway tugged at her heart.

These weren't drawings, they were cries for help.

Rita stood from her spot, taking all of the sheets of paper from the goth girl as she did so. Spotting the mess in the dining room she decided on her first course of action.

"Luna, Lucy, go tidy the mess your brother made, Lynn go to your room until I come speak to you. "

"but!"

" no buts young lady! Go. The rest of you leave the kitchen and leave those three alone and don't bother Lincoln either. " The matriarch of the house turned to her husband a slightly disappointed look on her face. "We'll be talking later as well."

* * *

After making sure each of her daughter's were obeying her she made off for her son's room. The stack of papers held in her hands.

She knocked on the door before waiting, after receiving no reply she pushed the door open, meeting a soft resistance as she did so. Looking down she saw that many blankets had taken up space just in the doors path. After stepping through the gap she made she let the door close behind her.

Lincoln's room was a mess, not just in the sense that everything was thrown about but with the fact that he basically had nothing.

It had taken this long for it to sink in but she realised that she had been a horrible mother to her only son, and she was the only one to blame.

Seeing her son laid down on the air mattress was not what she expected to find but she wasn't surprised in the slightest. She could hear his ragged breathing from where she stood and it clutched at her heart to see her baby boy being so down.

Slowly she lowered herself down till she was sat next to him.

"Are You ok Lincoln?" From her seat next to him she could see him shake his head , at least he was answering her. She considered that a win in her book.

"I'm... So sorry about what happened Lincoln, both to you and your art work."

" I know I haven't been a... I've been a horrible mother to you, but I want you to know I don't love you any less then the girls, I never have. " slowly she reached out to stroke his snow white hair. "But you'll always be my baby boy and I should have been there for you. Not against you. "

Seeing that she was getting nowhere right now she brought up what few drawings she had and began to look through them. There was the one of Lola, one of Luna rocking out on her guitar, one of Lucy standing stoically in her room, the two... Unmentionable drawings, one of Lynn junior playing football.

She paused as she looked at that one, it was clearly done at a time when all of this wasn't happening. Exactly how long had he been doing all of these for? Longer then she could guess most likely as many of the drawings had been destroyed. The large glob of paper had been thrown into the trash, there was nothing that could be salvaged from it unfortunately.

She was about to continue through the drawings when she realised a third hand was holding onto it, one of Lincoln's. At some point he had turned around and was now holding onto the drawing of Lynn. She let him have all of them, he only took the one of Lynn.

He observed it for a moment before bringing up his other hand. In a swift movement he tore the page in halve, then again, then a third time before scrunching it all into a small ball before putting it down next to her.

"If you really cared, this wouldn't have happened. " As she turned around to face him, she couldn't find anything to say that would prove him wrong.

It was high time she started to stick to her word. "I know, I'm sorry I couldn't be the best mother in the world... I'm gonna try to make it up to you... Somehow."

" I just want you to know, don't be afraid to show me what you can do. " she touched the other drawings with one of her hands, making them crinkle slightly. "These are... Excellent Lincoln, I'm sorry you didn't feel like you could have shown us these on your own."

Rita looked towards the door for a moment, realising that she had some bigger things to deal with. Like figuring out if Lynn really had used a bat against her brother.

Cause if she had... No amount of luck was going to save her.

* * *

**A/N: So, surprise.**

**I got really motivated to get this chapter done and... Here it is, consider it an apology for the longer wait times recently.**

**ALso, I know a lot of you probably hate me for doing that but hey, worth it.**


	21. Chapter 21

Rita sighed as she stood just outside the door, one half of her said to go through with it, the other did not. Each side battled for a moment before her patient side won out. Steeling herself she pushed the door open.

And walked right into Lisa's room.

If there was one thing that Rita wanted to do, it was get to the bottom to the sudden commotion. To deal with it now, just shortly after it had started rather then wait until it died down. She needed to get the truth out of Lynn about whether she had threatened her brother with a bat or not. However, she didn't want to nosedive right into it without having the facts sorted out first.

If there was one person who always gave her facts, it was Lisa. As she walked through the room she caught a glance of Lana and Lily playing together with her many building blocks. Lana was actually trying to build something nice while Lily was content with just hitting two blocks together joyfully. At least those two weren't in poor spirits.

"Hello mother." Lisa spoke from where she sat on her chair, her body facing towards her computer screen. Rita didn't stop to think about how she knew it was her, given that the young child had cameras all over the house.

"Hey Lisa, sorry to bother you but can you do something for me?" She stopped to stand behind the scientists chair, peering at the computer screen from above her.

"I do believe I already know what you want," the prodigal genius clicked away at her computer, shifting through files and folders before coming across one marked as: _**#IMPORTANT# **_Rita raised an eyebrow at her second youngest daughters statement but did not try to stop her. She was right almost all of the time.

Clicking on it caused a video to load onto the centre of the screen, Lisa enlarged it before turning up the sound volume.

The screen filled in to show Lincoln sat in the dining room, fully dressed and reading a comic while eating some cereal. It looked just like any other day to her.

"Hey you guys." Lori's voice broke through the silence. " Don't forget my golf tournaments this afternoon. " she watched as Lincoln dropped what he was doing to duck under the table. Getting underneath just before his sister's came into view of the camera. "You're all going to be there to support me right?"

Each of the girls voiced their agreements.

"And after that you're all coming to my charity fashion show, right?"

As each of the girls agreed with Leni, Rita saw Lincoln come crawling out from under the table before the camera switched to show a view at the bottom of the stairs where Lincoln emerged - Still crawling - before standing and hiding behind the wall.

The camera caught Lincoln's mouth moving as he spoke to himself, surprisingly he was looking right at the camera but there was no audio for this view point.

"Lincoln likes to speak to himself like he's speaking to an audience, says it helps him to stay organised and focused..." Lisa spoke as the two of them watched him ascend the stairs, comic in hand. "Still curious about it though."

When Lincoln got closer to the stairs they could make out his ramblings. "...I'm supposed to go to rodeo's, pageants, open Mic nights... Once in a while, a guy needs some time to himself."

They could see Lynn coming in from the side of the camera, in her baseball attire and wielding her baseball bat. Rita's eye twitched slightly, she wasn't sure if she wanted to watch her baby boy being hurt.

"Hey, Lincoln! You're coming to my softball game today, right?"

Lincoln's face dropped as he looked directly at the camera that was recording the footage. "Dang it. Should've done a head count." He turned to his sister. "Actually, Lynn, I've got some important business to attend to, Like Ace savvy Vs Card shark."

He presented his comic up to Lynn who immediately scoffed at it.

"Lame, my team has won our last six games, and you're the only member of our family who hasn't come to support me."

"That's because I was supporting six other sisters at _their_ things. Sorry, Lynn, I just can't do it today."

Rita watched as her sporty daughter grew a confident smile that bordered onto smug. She tapped the bat against her hand threateningly.

"Sure you won't reconsider?"

Lisa reached towards and paused the video there, capturing a brief glimpse of fear on Lincoln's face. Rita ran one of her hands over her face to try to calm her nerves. No wonder he looked so down during that game... He didn't choose to go, he was forced.

"Thank you Lisa... That really helps." She gave the scientist a small pat on the shoulder. She wanted to turn away, to just go to Lynn and confront her with the info Lisa had given her but a part of her didn't let her do so. Some motherly instinct that wouldn't go away.

Her eyes darted up to the screen, seeing her son's fearful expression. "Lisa... How long have you known you had this footage?"

The scientists blinked before mentally counting the days in her head. " Nine, why? "

Rita felt a hint of disappointment enter her, she knew all her daughter's so well that she could mostly understand their thought process. Remembering what she could up until the day of Lynn's lost game Rita recognised that none of them had this video before Lincoln had been kicked out or even before he had come back inside, Still if she had known about this... Well, she wasn't sure what she would have done but she knew what she was going to do. She knew Lisa didn't hide this information for nefarious purposes but for a social study. "Lisa, why didn't you tell me or your father about this sooner?"

Being who she was the scientist answered her bluntly and truthfully , believing she couldn't waste her brain for fabricating lies. "Simple, it would have interfered with the results..." Lisa was smart enough to know just how well her mother knew her. "... That, and I didn't think you or senior would have cared much or believed it."

Rita frowned as she heard that, a small stab entered her heart as she realised she wasn't being given the normal level of trust a child should have for their parents. The same went for Lincoln, otherwise he would have come forth about this on the day it happened.

If anything it showed why Lincoln's drawing was somewhat overdramatic, if only slightly. Cause he was afraid of Lynn Jr. And what she could do... Or he was, as evident by the slap she had received from him just yesterday. She didn't like this, so much was happening at once, after weeks of near silence everything was crumbling down quickly.

"I'm sorry you believe that Lisa, I'm trying to fix that but I want you to know, if you ever find or currently have other things like this... Tell me immediately, understood?" Rita turned away, a small sting of pain in her heart but she was prepared to face her sporty daughter.

"Indeed. And if I may say... It's good to see you've returned to your senses... I trust there will be many changes in the next few days?"

Rita's hand grasped the handle as she thought about that for a moment, her eyes darted to the many chemicals that where close to Lily's crib. "Yes... There will be."

Lisa blinked behind her glasses as her mother left, she hoped that the changes were only good.

* * *

Outside the room Rita let a breath enter her before she walked with purpose to Lynn and Lucy's shared room. No matter what happened, she was going to hold her ground against the Jock.

No matter how stubborn and prideful she was going to be.

The athlete was laid down on her bed, tossing a tennis ball against the wall and catching it as it came back to her. She kept repeating this with a bored expression as she waited for something to happen.

Rita waited a moment for Lynn to throw the ball again before she shot her hand out and caught the ball midair. If anyone thought that Lynn had received her athleticism from her namesake, they were quickly proven wrong by Rita herself. Rita had been extremely active in her youth. Junior had only got her passion for it from her father.

"Hey!" Rita did her best to not let her child's shouting get to her, it was normally easy for her but her patience was worn thin and she was only going to allow so much before she put the Jock in her place. Her husband would not receive the same generosity later.

"Don't 'Hey ' me young lady, you owe me an explanation." Rita crossed her arms over her chest , the ball still held in her hands. She tapped her foot for a moment after the Jock stayed silent, giving off a frown to the young teen. "Lynn."

The jock groaned as she say up in an exasperated manner , throwing her arms in the air as she did so. "Jeez, ok. Chill out." One look to her mother proved that her choice of words were not the wisest choice to say. She licked her lips as she felt her throat go dry at the look she was receiving.

The thirteen year old shook off her feelings before signing loudly. "Please don't tell me you're wound up by a picture mom, it's a drawing its no more real then the lame comics Lincoln reads."

She shock her head at that, her old book hadn't been about her everyday life but she knew the pages held emotions only she could garner from it with a glance. The same went for Lincoln and his drawings.

"Lynn... I'm concerned it may be real, I just want the truth. Did you or did you not, threaten your brother with your bat?"

Lynn's eyes widened , Rita wasn't sure If she was faking surprise or being genuinely surprised, in the end it didn't matter.

"Of course not! I known I can get a little overzealous at times and a bit animated but I would never dare try to hurt Lincoln purposely."

Rita sighed as she relaxed slightly , she realised that her method was a little heavy handed and was causing the jock to try to blag her way out Of the situation. She had to admit though, Lynn was telling a half truth. She had always expressed concern whenever she and Lincoln did spar, going to great lengths to teach Lincoln the basics so he could avoid injury... But that was then and this was now and Rita couldn't help but feel the teen was holding onto the illusion she was still like she was weeks ago.

The matriarch sat down on the bed, placing her hands on her thighs as she looked to her knees.

"Lynn listen, I know both today and yesterday have been hectic and... Rough for you, but I need to know if you feel any... Negative emotions towards your brother. "

The athlete opened her mouth to say something but seemed to think better of it before she let out a small sigh.

"Yeah, I guess." Rita let a smile both her face for a second before it dropped off her face. She just had to hope that she could get through her daughter but she knew Lynn was far more stubborn then this. "It's not easy staying positive when bad things keep happening. First the slap, then Luna and now this. As for why I push it all on Lincoln... " Lynn paused as she tried to think of an actual answer before groaning in frustration. "I don't know, ok? It's easy I guess. He doesn't... Didn't fight back."

Rita shook her head at those words, it wasn't right to push someone around just because they wouldn't fight back. She could easily do that to her husband but she didn't, she loved him too much to do that to him.

"Lynn, you really shouldn't do that, it's not right. You can't see it but you really hurt your brother today, not physically, " she quickly added as she saw her daughter try to interrupt her. "But emotionally, all those things you said about his drawings really struck him close to the heart. Don't you see what you've done? "

Lynn could only hold her mother's gaze for a short while before turning away. Yeah, she knew what she had been doing to him. It was all she could think about whenever she had a moment to think... And it ate her away from the inside. She had pushed him away and broken him down, all because she was superstitious about her damn game. Luck had no factor in all of this, it was her against him because she couldn't take a loss with dignity.

Now though? She wasn't sure just what she had done to her brother, she had been mad. At Luna, yet she had gone off and insulted Lincoln's stuff because... Well it was there. That was the best answer she could come up with. Was she really wired to immediately make Lincoln feel worse just because they were near each other? The jock raised her hands to her head to alleviate the small headache that was coming on.

Rita watched as her daughter's mental walls collapsed, the way she seemed to question herself and second guess her actions. Her phone chimed, she was tempted to ignore it but figured it may have been important. Pulling out her phone showed a message from Lisa with a video file attached, she didn't need to open it to know what it was. She also knew she needed to punish her daughter but not before making her re-evaluate her actions.

"Lynn, what you did was the same as... Say he came in here and said all your trophies," she gestured to the growing collection of awards that sat upon the shelves. "Were worthless and useless all because they were made of plastic and wood."

She could tell her athletic daughter wanted to say something, something else was holding her back though as she turned to her mother. A single look in her eyes showed her the mental conflict within her, the decision between what she wanted and what was right.

Almost there.

"You do realise, Lynn, that your brother doesn't see us as family not because he doesn't love us but because he believes we don't love him."

As a mother she could tell exactly what was going on with her children, her words were only proven by the fact that Lincoln had given them the chance to prove themselves, how he and Lana seemed to hang around each other a little more yet she had not yet been forgiven.

It was all proof that he still cared for them.

"And it started with you, because you held your superstition over your love for your brother. And that hurt him more then anything."

" How... How do you know that? " Rita smile nicely to Lynn, a smile that faded as she turned her phone over and clicked on the video.

"A mother always knows Lynn, I know all of you better then you know yourselves." Her expression morphed into one of disappointment, Still Lynn had not admitted the truth, admitting to a fault was the first step to fixing it. she could tell her daughter was not going to let it drop so easily.

"I'm sorry to do this Lynn," she showed her phone to her, showing the scene from top the stairs that had happened weeks ago. "But until further notice you are grounded, " she held up her hand as Lynn tired to speak, silencing her before she could. "I want all of your sports equipment, every last ball, puck, stick, bat and racket. I want all your uniforms, helmets, handwraps... Everything sports related. I want it all downstairs after dinner, you are hereby banned from all your sports activities and anything related to sports in general. "

She could see the look of shock work it's way into her face, the fire in her eyes grew and fizzled out at the same time, sadly for the Jock she wasn't done yet. "No TV until further notice and you need to get your school grades back up, don't think I haven't noticed you dropping, your school informed me the other day. Do you understand all of this? "

There was a moment of silence as Lynn's eyes darted around the room, the last ember of her flame trying to ignite a flame for her to fight back with.

"Lynn." Rita spoke with a manner of pure authority, forcing the Jock to answer her.

"Yes mom. "

"Good." She paused the video on her phone , causing it to stop at the same moment that Lisa had paused it at, giving Lynn a full view of her brothers fearful expression. "I want you to have a long, hard think about what you've done and I know that all of us have had a part in it, it wasn't just you."

There was a silence as Rita let all she had said sink into her daughter's head. Believing that she had done all she could for now Rita stood up from her seat and made a move for the door, just before leaving she turned back to the girl in the bed. "I'll send Leni up with a few bags after dinner, I will be inspecting your room to make sure you haven't hidden anything so don't try. "

"Mom." She Paused in closing the door and looked towards the athlete. "Are you angry with me?"

The matriarch looked to the floor for a moment tempted to not answer the question but knew better then to not answer such a heavy question. Silence would be worse then an answer. "I'm not angry Lynn... I'm furious, at your actions, your behaviour, my own stupidity and my blindsightedness towards your brother. But like an adult, I'm not taking it out on someone else."

The younger girl nodded to her mother before she laid down onto her bed and faced the wall. Seeing that their conversation was over Rita slowly closed the door as she left. That went... A lot better then she had thought it would have.

Now she needed to have very long, very serious talk wit-

"Hey mom."

Rita let out a small scream as she curled in on herself , bringing back her arm that still held onto Lynn's ball. She looked like she was ready to pitch a throw. After a moment she looked down to see Lucy stood just before her, as stoic and emotionless as ever. She didn't even look the slightest bit worried that she could have received a ball to the face, even if it would have been accidental.

Relaxing her stance Rita lowered her amrs. "Sorry about that Lucy, you frightened me for a moment."

" It's ok. I know you didn't mean it. " Personally, Rita couldn't handle Lucy's monotone voice, to her it wasn't right for an eight year old to not display emotion. But she also believed in allowing her kids the freedom to express themselves in whatever non-harmful way they could. "I just wanted to let you know I'm going to be sleeping with Luna for a while... It that ok?"

Feeling a little concerned by this sudden decision Rita leaned forwards to address her daughter better. "Is there a reason for this Lucy? It's not like you to want to sleep in her room."

"Sigh, I don't want to be in the same room as Lynn at the moment, I don't think I'd be able to sleep with such a... Horrible person in the same room as me, and I'm all for Dark and horrible. " Slowly Lucy's hands slipped into her pockets as she looked down.

"Well, I guess I can't stop you but what's brought this on so suddenly, I know you and Luna have been hanging around each other nicely these past few days, so why now?" She watched as Lucy nodded while pulling out her phone , quickly showing last thing she had received to her mother.

It was the exact same message she herself had received from Lisa not five minutes ago. Rita realised that Lisa hadn't sent it to her to use against Lynn, she had sent out the video to everyone in the family. Letting them know of the event, that was going to cause some problems at dinner... Scratch that, it would cause a lot of problems.

Rita sighed when she realised that it meant she would have to manage all of her daughters decreasing moods while making sure they didn't rip Lynn's head off. It seems the athlete would have to eat her dinner in her room for a few days, at least that was the quickest solution the mother of eleven could come up with at the moment.

"Ok, as long as it's ok with Luna and Luan. Would you need anything from your room sweety?"

Lucy's mouth twitched at the nickname but she didn't bother to try to argue against it , she just didn't have the energy right now. Not after having to put all the game pieces back into their original boxes. Why do they have so many of them?

"Just a change of clothes and some PJ's for tonight, otherwise I'll be fine... Or as fine as a walking slab of meat destined to rot away can be." Rita chuckled nervously at her daughter's pessimism but didn't pursue her to stop, even if she really didn't need the morbid reminder of their impending doom... And now she was doing it too, great.

"Well, that's great, I suppose. I'll get some things for you from your room later after I check on Lynn alright? "

"That's fine... I have time to kill... And bury."

With that the young goth turned towards the musicians room , leaving her mother behind slightly disturbed. Shaking off the dark image from her mind.

Now, she needed to have one very long talk with her husband. And it was going to get ugly.

"Kids dinners done!"

Right after dinner.

* * *

Dinner had come and gone with extreme tension, there was a strong aura of hostility that could be detected from the girls. So much so that Rita was a little unnerved by it.

There was also a small level of hostility between the girls and their father. Lori and Luna had both made a small show of moving their places to the other end of the table, away from their father who sat at the end. The rest of the girls had sort of followed suit with the two of them, sitting in the chairs until there was a space of one seat on one side and a space of two on the other. No doubt his disregard towards their brother had ticked them off slightly, add on their moods being worse with the video and they were taking it all out on him currently.

Rita herself had decided to take the space between her husband and Lily, making it look like they weren't trying to put distance between them and him. Very little talking was done that night, very few of the girls wanted to talk and those who did so spoke in a crisp short manner, trying to not draw out what they were saying.

Due to both Lynn Jr. And Lincoln not coming down it left the two chair space opposite the matriarch empty, and it had served as a reminder to her failure as a mother during the entire meal.

After the meal was all said and done, Rita instructed Leni to take a bunch of storage bags from the basement up to Lynn. Saying the Jock would know what to do with them. Afterwards she grabbed her husband by the wrist before dragging him to their shared room.

For the moment the two adults were standing around in silence, one being perplexed and the other getting impatient.

After a moment Rita sighed while pinching the bridge of her nose. "I cannot believe you Lynn." The matriarch dragged her hand down her face as she looked at her husband of nearly twenty years. "Of all the things you could have said... You said that?"

She didn't give the father of her children the chance to talk as she kept going. "Don't you understand that our son is hurting? Can't you see the effect your words have on him? "

For his own part, Lynn Sr. Was stood there, with a fish out of water look. Confusion evident on his face. This caused Rita to almost develop a glare to send his way, it wasn't for a few moment until the man of the house managed to find himself.

"Is this about the incident between junior and Luna? "

"Lynn Senior! I'm talking about our son and your disregard towards his property. " Rita waved her hand in a frustrated fashion before she began to pace around the room. "_So it wasn't anything important then. "_ She spoke the very phrase that he had less then an hour ago with a large amount sarcasm thrown in. "Do you have any idea how much those words hurt him?"

Lynn Sr. Moved around the room, deciding to use his time to also gather a pair of pajamas to change into for later. "Perhaps I was a bit tactless, I'll admit. But it was just a book dear, whatever he had in it, I'm sure he can redo in a new one. " The man nodded to himself before pulling his dressing gown and placing that over his PJ's. "It was probably nothing more then a few of his plans and ideas. I mean he is the man with the plan after all."

There was a hint of pride in his voice as he said that, as if he was proud that their son could come up with schemes that ultimately based around controlling, tricking, manipulating and avoiding his sister's. Rita brought in a breath before exhaling, trying to calm herself down.

"In all my years of knowing you," she started as she took steps to reach her drawers, rifling through them to find something quickly. "Never have you been so... Oblivious. Our house is in disarray, our daughters are out of control, our son is hurting and you're sitting there acting like nothing it wrong here. "

She blinked as her hand came into contact with a small keyring that had two identical keys on it, perfect.

"Starting tomorrow, there's going to be a lot of changes in this house. " She pulled the keys from the drawer before shutting it. It banged loudly as she did so, her anger having not subsided one bit. "And you can either stand by my side or watch from the sidelines... But either way I'm going to get this house organised again. "

"Don't you think that's a little extreme dear? Over a small fight and a book?"

"_ Over a small fight."_ The matriarch turned around to her husband, who was stood close to the door. "How about, maybe I'm doing this because there are at least three small fights a day. Because the girls need to remember that we are the parents and we are in charge, we've let them walk all over us for too long Lynn." Rita blew out a frustrated breath before reaching down to the bed and grabbing a pillow off of it.

"It took a lot for me to drag my head out of the clouds. And now I can see exactly what we've done to our girls, to our baby boy. We need to change things."

She turned towards her husband before stalking towards and pushing him out of their room, placing the pillow in his arms as she did so. She turned back to lock the door with the keys she had found before turning towards the patriarch of the house.

"And until you can do the same, your not sleeping in the same room as me. Consider this a warning. " She pocketed the keys and as she did so could feel a ball of crumpled up paper. The picture that Lucy had handed to her earlier, the only picture that she was a little hesitant to return to Lincoln.

She had little need of it now, She pulled it out of her pocket before firmly pushing it against his chest. "And for your information, this is what was in that book."

She's turned away from him, walking her way to the stairs. She needed to go check on Lynn to make sure the jock was obeying her and she needed to get some things for Lucy... As she ascended the stairs she forced herself to calm down, her kids did not need to suffer her bad mood because of their father.

Downstairs the patriarch of the family placed the few things he had down on the coffee table before taking a seat on the couch. His eyes landed on the crumpled ball of paper, curiosity overtook the man before he reached down to retrieve it. Unfolding it revealed the few details that were still in good condition.

Even so, the picture was still nice and clear. Or as clear as a smudged up drawing on crumpled paper could be. After a taking a long look at it his face dropped down.

* * *

**A/N: Some of you really hit your predictions on the nose last chapter. Good Job**

**Might try to get some work on Moving in done, don't know, have to see how it goes on the morning.**

**Would have had this out sooner but by the time I got it done in was too tired to do a double check for mistakes.**


	22. Chapter 22

Breakfast next morning had proven to be a... Tense affair.

Unsurprisingly, No-one had been able to wake up before the sole male child of the house had managed to slip away into the early morning. Something that worried the likes of Rita, Lori and Luna respectively. The commotion of the previous day had not slipped their mind nor had they forgotten anything.

What made breakfast bad though was the presence of Lynn Jr. who had come down to eat before having to leave for school. The jock was no longer wearing her red jersey, with it having been removed from her room along with everything that was sports related, which was almost everything. She was now just sporting a simple white T-shirt with her regular shorts, with trainers instead of cleats.

The rest of the girls ignored her presence and at one point Luna had pushed an empty chair away from her when Lynn tired to sit down next to her. Luckily nothing worse then that had happened yet and Lynn didn't respond to the minor acts of aggression against her.

The effects of sleeping on the couch were visable on Lynn Sr. The way he held himself showed that his back was in pain and he did not get a good night's sleep. Evident by the mug of coffee in his hands and bags under his eyes as he hunched over the kitchen side.

As much as Rita felt bad for not sorting everyone's attitudes out, she also knew there was very little that she could actually do. Not while the hate was still burning hot within them. Still she was adamant about how she was going to change things, how she was going to get this household back under her control. Regardless of whether her husband did or did not support her.

But trying to enforce several new and sudden changes onto almost a dozen people while they where still half asleep was not something that she needed to do. Not unless she desired to have her daughter's turn against her too.

Her eyes caught the twins both glaring at the back of junior's head, those too seemed to have found some small middle ground between them recently. Neither of them had started a fight with the other, for the first time in a long time, so Rita held a little confidence that change could happen in this household.

It certainly wasn't impossible, after all.

Noticing the time the mother of eleven placed down her own mug of coffee before moving over to her infant daughter Lily. She pulled the fully dressed infant out of her high chair before resting against her hip before turning towards the rest of her daughter's.

"Alright girls, hurry it up before we're late." She turned to her eldest daughter. "Lori, I'll be driving today, so may I have the keys please."

Lori paused for a moment before her mother's words sank in. "Uh... Sure." She opened her purse before pulling out the aforementioned keys before throwing them across the room, where her mother deftly caught them with ease.

As she made a turn to begin making her way to the front door she turned back to address her husband. "Lynn, you can go get changed, I left the door unlocked." Slowly she made her way to the front door, the multiple pairs of footsteps she could hear behind her indicated that her daughter's were following her.

"I call shotgun!" Luan called out before she tried to make a mad dash for the family wagon. Only to be stopped by the matriarch's arm, Rita regarded her comedic daughter with a neutral look before she turned her attention to the rest of her daughters who where beginning to argue over who got the mentioned seat.

She raised her hand to her mouth before letting out a sharp whistle. Silence reigned over them before Rita spoke up. "I will not have any arguing over seating arrangements this early in the morning." She motioned towards her athletic daughter before continuing. "Lynn will be getting the front seat, only because..." She raised her voice slightly before her daughters could interrupt her. "... I don't want or need any of you getting physical with her and because I need to keep an eye on her."

She turned towards Lynn Jr. giving off an aura of authority to her. "This is as much a punishment as it is a blessing, so remember that."

With that she turned back to the door before opening it, slowly guiding her children to the hulking frame of vanzilla. Taking one glance at the family wagon brought a frown to her face, how her husband convinced her that the thing couldn't or didn't need replacing was beyond her. It was a safety hazard through and through. It was only through Lana's mechanical skills that the old girl kept running.

That would be something to think about later though.

As several of her daughter's climbed into the back seats, grumbling the whole way, Rita strapped her infant daughter into her car seat. Tugging on the straps to be sure they wouldn't come undone she gave a satisfied nod before making her way to the drivers seat.

Once each of her daughter's were seated and strapped in she started the van and began to drive her way to the elementary school. The first five minutes were silent, save for the rapid clicks of Lori's phone coming from the front row, which was easily ignored by everyone.

When the hulking van stopped at a red light Rita looked back at her girls through the rear view mirror. Noticing the twins were still glaring at Lynn, it would be something that needed addressing later.

"Girls." Each individual turned their attention to their mother, save Lori who paused for a moment, quickly tapped away at her phone and then put it down to pay attention. "Once school is over today, I will be picking you up and I expect to see you all outside and waiting for me."

" Once we're home we are all going to have a very _long_ discussion about some changes that are going to happen understood. "

A small, nervous, chorus of 'yes mom' echoed through the car as Rita began to drive as the light turned green again. It took five more minutes until they had reached the elementary school, Rita stated behind just long enough to watch four of her youngest daughter's walk into the front doors of the school before she pulled away.

The eldest five five girls said little else and the ride was filled with the soft coo's and noises made by Lily. After five more minutes they got close to the middle school, but instead of stopping Rita drove right past.

"Uh... Mom"

"I know." Rita's eyes darted up to the rear view mirror to see minor looks of confusion in the girls faces before she addressed the jock. "Since you are banned from ALL sports I have to go in and inform your school of the change, which means that may take a while and I won't have the rest of your sisters being late because of it."

When the hulking frame of the family wagon parked up outside the four eldest girls bid their mother goodbye before exiting the van and making a move for the front door. Leni and Luna were both intercepted by their respective groups of friends before they could.

Rita slowly drove the van back towards the middle school, keeping an eye on her infant daughter who was in the row behind her. When they finally pulled up Rita took one of the parking spaces before she got out. Lynn following just shortly after her.

after grabbing Lily the matriarch of the family made a move for the reception office of the school.

"You just go in Lynn, I'll see you later after school ok."

" Alright mom. " The jock slowly walked away from her mother, pushing herself towards where the rest of the kids were hanging around until school would properly start.

With Lily on her hip the matriarch walked towards the school. She knew, after today, many of the schools teams would be disappointed after losing one of, if not their best, player for the foreseeable future.

* * *

Mr Dawkins looked over the sheets of drawings that where before him, scribbles and scratches with some form of elegance mixed in here and there. As he expected from the second grade class he taught, although there were some small diamonds in the rough. Speaking of which.

his eyes darted up to his fifth grade students, being able to spot which of those were working and which of those were not. Not that it mattered too heavily, being the last class on a Friday meant he often relaxed on what the students could and couldn't do so long as they worked properly.

last week's class had produced some nice results, many of the students had lazily drawn themselves, some didn't bother to try while others had added on ridiculous features like serpent tongues and devil horns along with a manner of other things.

Normally such a thing would annoy other teachers but not him. He based his markings over the quality of a student's drawing and art work not whether is was done 'right', although several of the students certainly had room to improve. Some more then others.

His eyes landed on, who he considered to be, the star student of his class. Lincoln loud. Not that he would tell anyone that. The white haired boy was casually rolling a pencil across the table top, his head resting on one arm as he made no attempt to get any work done.

Last week the boy had come and spent an entire free hour in this room getting the work done early and having fun while doing it. And he had produced a piece of art that, in sheer quality, blew all the other students work out of the water.

Today however, the boy had dragged himself in at the back of the queue, hardly giving the work a first glance before he started doing what he was currently doing.

It disturbed him. To see a normally happy child being so... Depressed.

He could see the look in the boys eyes, his interest for drawing, for art, was shattered.

It wasn't normal for someone to go from liking something one week, to then having no motivation for it the next. Not unless something major had happened during that time.

It was one of the things that truly disturbed the art teacher. All year long Lincoln had produced artwork that was far beyond what everyone else was capable of... Or put effort into doing. Despite never telling the students who was the best of them or who had the highest grade, he always knew that Lincoln surpassed them in every way. Yet seeing him having no passion for one of the things he seemed to enjoy was something that deeply worried him. To an extent that he suspected something must have been going on outside of school grounds.

After passing his eyes over the class once more to be sure none of the students were goofing off too badly he turned towards his computer. Loaded up his email before creating a new one, where he began to write to several people.

* * *

To: A. Johnson, W.T. Huggins

Subject: Abnormal behaviour displayed by Student.

* * *

Mr. Dawkins looked over to the white haired boy again, hoping beyond hope that what he was going to do next was only going to be beneficial for the boy.

As much as he was doubting himself that this was going to work... Or do anything really, he couldn't shake off his gut instinct that something was deeply wrong with the boy.

He hoped he was doing the right thing here.

* * *

After school each of the girls had been picked up by their mother, Lincoln himself had slipped off somewhere during the commotion that was the rush to leave school on a Friday afternoon. Although the younger girls thought that they may have seen him walking away with Clyde but didn't get a good enough look to know if it was him or not.

like that morning Lynn had taken the front seat next to her mother, where she was kept under constant surveillance the entire ride over to the high school and during the journey home.

Little was said between them as the girls knew that as soon as they stepped through the door their mother would be all over them in regards to her 'changes'. They hadn't thought too much of it in the morning, but as the day went on, it gnawed at their minds until it was all they could think about.

What changes had their mother decided was best for them? and how badly would it effect them?

Rita was the last one to step into the house, shutting the door behind her while she held Lily on her hip. Her other nine daughter's were standing around the entrance and half way into the living room.

" Sit down, Now."

There was a paused for of a second before each of the loud girls moved into the living room, quickly taking seats on the long couch but choose to not argue over who sat where. The older four loud girls were sat hip to hip with each other while the four oldest of the younger girls sat on their laps. Lynn Junior had decided to take the arm chair, not because she felt she deserved it but because she knew she would be kicked off the couch if she tried to sit with the rest of her sisters.

After the girls were settled down Rita stood before them, her free arm on her hip as she gave the girls a stern look.

"There are no words that I can use, to say how disappointed I am. Not just with you but myself and your father too."

There girls eye'd each other before returning their attention back to their mother. Curious yet nervous about where this would go.

"For so long I have let you girls walk all over me, your father and your brother. Well... No more." Rita paused for a moment to place Lily down by her feet , the small toddler wasted no time in crawling to wherever she pleased and was already attempting to take her clothes off.

"From this moment onwards there's going to be some serious changes around here. And I expect you to stick to them, these aren't suggestions, they're rules. Do I make myself clear?"

These was a quite chorus of ' Yes mom' while the girls slowly nodded their heads.

"Now I'm not unreasonable, so if you feel like a rule is too harsh or too unfair to the majority of you or to a single one of you then you can _discuss_ that with me and I'll take your opinion under advisement. "

The matriarch crossed her arms over her chest, a stern authoritarian look crossing over her face as she looked down to the nine girls on the couch.

"Now I'm not fully done with making these new rules, and regardless, I would probably make more anyway. For now, I want all of you to dial back the noise, we live in a house not a zoo, standard playing is fine but I don't need screaming from the early morning all the way up to late at night."

" Secondly, if you have a problem you come to me or your father... When he's aware of these changes, and we will help you deal with it. No more petty squabbling or arguing over mundane things. "

Slowly Luan raised her hand, nervous that she may be scolded for interrupting. "Uh, mom?" Rita looked over to the comedian , giving her a nod to continue. "These changes will effect Lincoln as well right?"

" Yes. " She nodded as she looked over the rest of her daughter's, seeing that they too might have been questioning if these changes only affected them. "But I'll let him know myself when I get the chance."

" Next, there is going to be a slight change to the chores and what each of you do, But since I'm still thinking about that I'll let you know when I've sorted that out. " Rita moved her arm to dangle at her side's, contemplating if she should tell the next few things openly.

"Now there's a lot more, however, I'm going to go round to each of you to discuss those things privately. But each of you should expect there to be some serious changes around this house. And before you think about it..." She gave a stern look to her daughter's as she laid a thick level of authority into her voice. "Should you break any rule, No matter how small or innocent it seems. Expect a proportionate punishment, do I make myself clear? "

There was a hasty nod from most of her daughter's. Rita's eyes glanced down to her youngest, seeing that she had managed to worm off her shirt and was now laying on her back trying to reach her feet which were extended into the air.

"Right, next..." Before she could continue there was a loud rhythmic knocking at their front door. The noise made a few of them flinch, having not been expecting it.

Turning on her heel the matriarch moved for the door, doing her best to remove the stern look on her face so she wouldn't come across as rude or grouchy.

Opening the door revealed it to be a delivery man, immediately Rita could see the large box that contained a flat packed... Something, there were no labels on the sides she could see.

"Delivery for a... Mrs. Loud." The delivery man looked at Rita expectantly as she blinked in an surprised manner.

"Yes, that's me." She looked over to the large box that was being held up by the man's assistant before she was handed the clipboard. Without prompt the matriarch signed her signature at the bottom before handing it back.

The delivery man looked over the signature before nodding. "That's good, if you want to bring this in we'll go get the rest."

Rest? The matriarch blinked before she snapped out of her stupor. Leaning back slightly she called to the rest of the girls. "Lori, Leni, can you come help me with this." The matriarch reached out and took a hold of the box, keeping it balanced as the two men went off to their van.

After a moment the two girls joined their mother and helped her to bring the box through the door, leaving it leaned up against the wall. A few moments later the two delivery man returned with several soft packages and a small box, handing them over to the three women before returning to the van to bring the last item. A single sized mattress.

"Have a good day ma'am." The delivery man tipped his hat at Rita before he and his assistant turned back to their van. Rita slowly shut the door behind them before turning around to look at all the new items. It didn't take much for her to realise what all of it was.

"What is all of this?" Lola poked at one of the plastic wrapped packages , feeling it mold to the shape of her finger as she applied more pressure.

"That, My pink preferring Sibling, would be Lincoln's new bed, mattress, sheets and cover."

Each of the loud members - minus Lily - turned towards Lisa. Gaping at her with a mixture of surprised and curious looks.

The girls all looked over the items, able to make out that each of the items were indeed all for putting together a single bed. Slowly each of the girls realised just how big this was, Lincoln had been sleeping on the inflatable for a long time, covered only by a few old blankets with a worn out pillow.

To put simply, Lisa had given Lincoln a basic right that he should never have been without.

"You brought all of this Lisa?" The scientist turned To her mother, giving a nod as she spoke.

"Indeed, I believed it to be imperative that Lincoln be given the basic level of acceptable living conditions. "

Rita eyes glazed over for a moment before she spoke quietly to herself. "So that's why we're a little short this month?"

The girls looked over the items once more, surprised that Lisa of all people was the one to consider Lincoln's physical well-being before the rest of them. A few of them felt ashamed that the thought had never crossed their minds, they realised that they had made no effort in trying to help better the situation their brother was in.

Lola however, had her eyes on the small box that had come with everything else, it seemed... Out of place. It looked far too small to contain anything that Lisa had said she had gotten. With curiosity takimy over her the six year old princess picked up the box before presenting it to Lisa.

"So... What's this?"

Lisa pushed her glasses up her nose as she looked over the box, raising an eyebrow when she did not immediately recognise it. It took a moment before her mind was able to place the item.

"Ah, I do believe that belongs to our male parental unit... I would advise leaving it be. "

Lisa last few words fell in to deaf ears as Lola had already pulled off the brown packaging to reveal the box beneath. Revealing a - quite frankly ugly - tie that looked similar to a puke stained rainbow.

"Eww." Most of the girls grimaced at the sight of the new addition to their fathers horrid tie collection. Whatever he saw in that they didn't have a clue, perhaps some inside joke that he had with himself?

"Alright girls that's enough, Lola put the box on the table and leave it there." The princess obliged, more then happy to get the item out of her hands. As Rita looked over the mass of delivered items she realised they probably had very little time before Lincoln came home.

"Listen girls, later I'm going to come round to each of you and let you know of the changes that affect you individually but for now I want each of your to help me get all this upstairs and into your brothers room. "

She looked down to the oldest of the two twins and then to Leni. "Lana, Leni I want you two to put Lincoln's bed together. Lori, Luna I want you two to try to organise his room so it's more manageable, as for the rest of you... Do what you can to get everything upstairs but not in the way. "

"I want your brothers room sorted before he gets back."

* * *

Lincoln slowly trudged his way up to the door of his house, his backpack dragging him to the ground with each step.

Today had been... Not one of his best days, to say the least.

No motivation, No energy, No... Anything really.

It was like his very soul had been ripped from his body, leaving him as nothing but an emotionless shell that went through the day on autopilot. Doing nothing but the basic necessities that everyone needed to do. His change in demeanor did not go unnoticed by many. Some where subtle in the way they looked at him, like girl Jordan, Chandler and - surprisingly - even Haiku.

He didn't care though, it wasn't like a few stares were ever going to harm him.

Then there were those who weren't subtle, like Rusty, Liam and Clyde. Clyde himself had fussed over his mood all day long, unsurprisingly. Although Lincoln didn't try to stop his friends, he also didn't have the energy to do anything aside from... Well, nothing.

Clyde had dragged him away back to his home after the school day ended, stating that the two of them needed to 'get to the bottom of his emotional state '. The white haired boy didn't fight against this but he wasn't any help in regards to helping Clyde help himself.

After an hour of Clyde's 'counseling ' the darker skinned boy realised that they weren't getting anywhere and decided to just drop the subject, for now.

After another two hours of comic reading, Tv watching and some light homework the Loud boy decided it was time to just go home. He did feel slightly better after hanging out with Clyde but the difference was marginally small. To the point that no-one really noticed a difference.

As Lincoln stood before the door to his home he tried to rid himself of his gloomy expression but didn't quite have the energy or care to put any effort into doing so.

Pushing the door open he was greeted with, what looked to be, a normal household. Luna's music could be heard at a respectable volume, not the usual eardrum busting volume it usually was. He could see Lucy sat on the couch with Lori, both seemed mildly interested in what they were watching. Lana was laid down on the floor over by Charles doggy bed and if it wasn't for said dog being there Lincoln suspected that Lana would have been sat in it herself.

The mechanic seemed content to draw on a piece of scrap paper from where she was laying, not really acknowledging anything going on around her.

With slow steps the boy moved towards the stairs, dragging his bag with him as he ascended up them. He didn't noticed when the girls downstairs looked at him. Lori's face conforming into worry at her brothers less then happy form.

There was no activity in the upstairs hallway and no sign of any of his other sisters. He didn't give the hallway a second glance as he made a slow crawl over to his room. With tiredness in his eyes he used the almost broken handle to push the door open ready to collapse onto the air mattress and just...

His eyes blinked as he looked at his room from the doorway, his mind refused to believe that what he was seeing was true. Yet as the boy took a step forwards he couldn't deny that what he was seeing was in fact very much real. In his surprise Lincoln had let his backpack fall from his shoulders, where it fell to the floor in a heavy thump.

No longer was the air mattress placed in the spot were his old bed used to be, instead in its place was a single bed. The white frame was strikingly similar to his old bed but the headboard and outer wooden beam had small ace savvy themed carvings all along it.

A new mattress was sat atop it and new Ace savvy themed sheets were present on top of it. The image displayed showed Ace and Card shark facing off to one another, surprisingly similar to one of his own comics.

The white plastic containers that held his things were no longer stacked on the corner of the room, instead they were neatly placed away under his bed, he could even see that each box now had a label on it telling him what was in each one.

The ottoman table that had been against the back wall was now placed were his old desk used to be, holding onto a collection of his possessions that looked like they had been rearranged and organised to fit across its surface.

He ran a hand over the top of the bed, almost cautiously. As if it would crumble away and he would be left with nothing but what he had that morning. When it did not do that he slowly climbed up onto the bed, feeling the very soft mattress conform to his shape.

If he though the first night sleeping on the air mattress was blissful, it paled in comparison to sitting down on an actual soft bed. one that - he assumed - he could call his own.

But who had done this? And when?

As Lincoln ran a hand over the bed in an absent-minded manner his hand came into contact with a piece of paper. A neatly folded note that had been half hidden in the white colour of his new bed sheets. With curiosity overcoming him he unfolded it, seeing the very neat writing that no doubt belonged to Lisa.

As his eyes slowly read through the note, he became more aware as to what had happened to his room. The young scientist claimed to have bought him the new bed almost a week ago but it had not arrived till today due to the shipping... And the price on next day deliveries.

The note also explained how several of the girls - under their mothers order - had entered his room and made it more organised and set up the bed for him.

At the end of the note Lisa left a little passage stating that she wished to talk to him about something important but did not specify as to what that was due to... Privacy reasons.

As Lincoln looked over the bed once more he realised just how big an effort Lisa had gone to to procure the bed for him. No doubt it had come out of the family's monthly budget as she had yet to receive authorisation for a grant... Or so she claimed.

If she had gone to the lengths to get this for him, with seemingly nothing expected back, then the least he could do was hear her out.

After he laid down on the bed for like... Twenty minutes.


	23. Chapter 23

Slowly time dragged on. With each passing second, each passing minute, Lincoln felt his body relax a little more. Slowly the bed on which he laid on conformed to his shape, encouraging him to get more and more comfortable in its embrace.

Never once before in his life did Lincoln think that simply laying on a bed would be so relaxing. He had always taken his old bed for granted, he had always had it and he assumed he would always have it. He had been proven wrong after all of his furniture had been removed, he still didn't understand the reasoning behind that.

That was the past now, although he wasn't going to forget about it.

Despite laying on - What he perceived was - a physical cloud, his mood had hardly improved from earlier but, he was noticeably better.

Slowly the boy stretched out, feeling nothing but the soft bed conform to his changing positions as he did so. For the first time that he could remember, he couldn't wait to actually go to sleep tonight. A far cry from what he had felt over the past two weeks, where he had gone to sleep simply for the purpose of getting round to the next day quicker.

In the back of his mind his thoughts came together for just long enough to remind him that he really needed to thank his brainy sister Lisa for what she had done. The small, relaxed smile that was present in his face faded as his eyes opened at the thought. At the reminder that he needed to go see Lisa.

It wasn't that he didn't want to go talk to her, it was the sudden realisation that he wasn't sure what he was going to say to her. Or even what she wanted to talk about. Still the longer he put it off, the worse it would become. Besides, he needed to give her a little thanks for what she had done and no doubt sacrificed for him.

Lincoln couldn't imagine going behind Mr. And Mrs. Louds back to spend who knows how much on something as expensive as a whole new bed, New covers and all.

His eyes glanced over the walls of the room, there were faint traces where his posters had been hung up. The rest of the room - minus the small table - was sparsely decorated. The Stark walls were still a strong reminder as to everything that had happened and although he could put the posters back, he couldn't help but feel like he would be... Faking it.

Personally he couldn't envision his room being decorated exactly how it had been before, the image of it was... Wrong. It resembled a time before all of this, before he realised how his family really looked at him and what they thought about him.

That was an idea for later though, slowly Lincoln moved off of his bed, letting his feet dangle off the side before they hit the floor. That was another small difference from the old mattress that Lincoln was going to like, No longer was he going to be sleeping at floor level any more. With a small desire to temporarily remove himself from his room, Lincoln moved for his door, kicking his bag out of the way before he entered the empty hallway.

The boy had hardly walked half a dozen steps before he found himself at the door of the houses two youngest residents. He hesitated for a moment before raising his hand to the door and knocking on the hard wood. There was a tentative silence for a few seconds before Lisa's voice called through the door, beckoning him to enter.

Slowly the white haired boy opened the door, a tad bit hesitant that Lily may have been present in the room too. The last thing he wanted to do was open the door and hit the little tyke. Peaking in he caught the young scientist at her desk, casually reading through a book on advanced mathematics.

As he walked in Lincoln shut the door behind him, lest anyone get any idea to eavesdrop on him from outside the room.

"Hey Lisa." He spoke awkwardly as he took slow steps towards the genius. Rubbing his right bicep with his left hand as his eyes darted to everything around Lisa but never towards her face.

"Afternoon Male resident." Lisa's eyes turned to him for a moment before she looked back at her book. She kept her eye on the part where she was before reaching out for her bookmark, placing it on the current page she closed the book before leaving it on her desk. She turned her chair around to the rooms only other occupant as she intertwined her fingers together. "What can I do for you?"

" Well... " his hand left his arm as it fell to his side, his eyes looking over the shelves of filled beakers and bottles. "You did want to ask me something."

Lisa hummed to herself as she followed his eyes to where he was looking, seeing them land on her nobel prize. A small look of... Envy? Perhaps?, Crossed his face before he looked back at her, almost expectantly.

"Of course, why else would I ask for you?" She adjusted her glasses as she felt them begin to fall off her nose. "First though I would like to know, how do you find your new sleeping arrangements? Are they satisfactory?"

Without realizing it a small smile showed itself into the boys face, a hint of joy entered his eyes as he nodded. "Yeah... I like it... Thanks."

Lisa herself nodded as she turned to her desk, seeing the few pages of paper that were sat there. She fidgeted on her seat before she looked back at her brother, the two finally managing to make eye contact. "Well, I'm glad to hear that, I was worried that you wouldn't have liked it."

Lisa pulled the sheet of paper off the table before resting it on her lap, she opened her mouth to say something before she closed it. For the first time she could remember, she wasn't sure what to say. Ok, that was wrong. She knew _what_ she wanted to say but she wasn't sure how to say it.

No doubt just asking it would bring about unnecessary confusion for Lincoln, that was something she wanted to avoid. She couldn't start by apologising either, not because she hasn't done wrong but because no amount of 'I'm sorry' was going to change anything.

Seeing the confused look across her face Lincoln took a few more tentative steps closer to the scientist, a look of concern crossing his face as he saw the hesitation on Lisa's. "Well..." He started, slightly swaying his body back and forth. "...I wasn't exactly expecting to find a whole new bed when I got home so..." Subconsciously he kicked one of Lily's building blocks with his foot, causing it to roll closer to Lisa's chair. "... It was a nice surprise, I especially like the covers and the carvings, I didn't know there were frames with those on them."

" There's not. " Lincoln blinked as Lisa's words cemented into his head, he must have looked confused as Lisa simply shook her head before continuing. "There are no Ace savvy themed bed frames, probably never will be, Leni decided to carve those into the bed frame herself after seeing the covers... She felt especially motivated to make them after seeing several of your comics."

For a moment Lincoln felt a little bit of joy in hearing that Leni had gone out on a whim to improve something that Lisa had done for him, especially since it was on a small level she had never really done before. But that joy faded as he realised that Leni had essentially 'piggy-backed' off of Lisa's own attempt to get him back. As much as he appreciated the gesture, it wasn't something she had entirety thought of on her own. So he was a little... Biased to the idea of giving Leni as much credit as Lisa was going to get from him.

He wasn't going to hate Leni - any more then he already was - for what she had done but she wasn't getting any slack cut for her either.

"Oh... Wow. Ok." Still, he couldn't ignore the effort that she had no doubt put into it.

"Indeed, personally I wasn't a fan of the idea as she could have damaged the bed but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and... Well I was surprised."

Lincoln nodded at her, it made sense that she would have been apprehensive towards someone potentially ruining all her hard work. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time that it had happened, Lincoln doubted that she would have appreciated all her hard work being undone in such a short amount of time.

"Anyway, I suppose I should get on with what I wanted you for." Lisa casually moved her hand to tap on a random key on her keyboard, causing the screen to exit sleep mode. There screen itself displayed several separate camera views all individually labeled, yet only two showed live feed while the other three where nothing but black static.

*Lincoln Room 1 (Overview Cam)*

*Lincoln Room 2 (Door view Cam)*

*Lincoln Room 3 (Toy cam)*

*Lincoln Room 4 (Bed cam)*

*Lincoln Room 5 (Hallway Cam)*

Only cameras one and five where still operational, the other three sections had a bright red #OFFLINE# error message flashing rhythmically over the static. He shivered slightly as he realised that he must not have ever had the level of privacy that he thought he had, especially if he had five cameras dedicated to him.

"No doubt you find this overwhelming, so when you have a chance to finish recovering, read this." Using one hand to push her glasses up her nose, again, Lisa held out the sheet of paper towards Lincoln who took it from her. After shaking off the feeling of having his privacy being invaded.

He looked down at the sheet of paper, realising that it read as a contract. Not a letter or piece of mail but what looked to be a fully abiding contract.

"I Lisa Loud hereby state that from henceforth I will be removing cameras that invade privacy and/or make the signer of this document uncomfortable." Lincoln paused for a moment from reading the note out loud before he read ahead, letting the words cement themselves into his head before he spoke them out loud. "Any attempt to replace these pieces of equipment will result in a punishment set by one Mrs. Rita Loud."

" If at any point the signer of this document feel other equipment is invasive to their privacy or security it can and should be discussed to come to a full compromise within the presence of Mrs. Rita Loud and/or Mr. Loud. " Lincoln looked up to Lisa expectantly, despite not being done reading the paper, the scientist made a hand gesture to encourage him to keep reading.

"Due to the hazardous situation of which is (Lisa Louds experiments), the signer is NOT to be involved unless they wish to be and/or have been granted permission to be involved. By this document the signer CANNOT be used as a test subject for future experiments and the safety of all non-participants should be taken into account before experiments are started. "

"Should the affect parties (Lisa Loud) find any attempts to go against the above agreements being done by a third party (aka. The rest of the loud sisters) she is to report this immediately and attempt to remove said violations immediately should it be deemed safe."

Slowly over the course of him reading out the 'contract' - it was just a written up promise really - Lincoln had grown more and more confused and it had become evident by the facial expressions he was making and the way the confusion etched its way into his voice.

Looking up at the little scientist Lincoln could immediately see the anxious look on her face, her eyes revealed her nervousness and worry. In this moment she looked like an actual four year old that was trying to desperately apologize to someone they had upset. She truly looked the furthest thing from a scientist at the moment and lot more like a vulnerable little girl.

cause deep down, that's what she was. A little girl, poking and prodding the world, trying to figure out what she could and couldn't do.

"Lisa, what exactly... Is this?" Although he held no illusion that the, somewhat formal, 'document' in his hand was fake he wanted to hear what the four year old had to say about it.

"Put Simply? It is a written and verbal agreement to do everything that is written on there. With no exceptions," slowly Lisa shuffled on her chair and Lincoln could see more childish traits emanate from her. Such as avoiding eye contact and slowly swinging her legs over the edge of the chair. "I have violated your personal rights far too many times dear brother, and I only wish to make it up to you. "

"I know I don't say this enough, or have ever said it really, but I really do care for you Lincoln." Lincoln blinked in surprise at hearing that, he couldn't remember a time where she had in fact said such a thing to him. In private or otherwise. "I feel like you're the only one who has the intellect to keep up with what I'm saying and I know you don't really judge me for what I do, even if you do question it from time to time. I just... " Lisa sucked In a breath and Lincoln could have sworn it sounded... Emotional.

Feeling touched by her little speech Lincoln moved closer to the young girl, kneeling before the chair to the point that his head was perpendicular to her chest. From this vantage point he could see the very tears that threatened to escape from her eyes, even the emotionally suppressed girl couldn't keep her emotions at bay during all of this. Lincoln himself was coming close to the way she was too.

"Lisa, did you do all of this," he waved the piece of paper around slightly, the noise of it flapping against his hand was heard as he did so. "For me?"

While avoiding looking in his eyes Lisa nodded , rubbing her eyes with her sleeve she sniffed her nose. "I W-wanted to prove just how much you mean to me, it isn't everyday I meet someone who can keep up with me more times then not, you've even managed to outsmart me on several occasions too."

Despite being rare and few, he could take credit for doing so. If only because he knew her well enough that even he could see the opportunities she had to commit and experiment in someone in secret. Like the time she tried to do so while he was working hard to get everyone ready quickly that one morning he had to get his school project in. He hadn't outsmarted her once but twice that morning, all within twenty minutes of each other.

Looking over the bottom of the piece of paper showed the written signatures of Lisa and Mrs. Loud, with two empty spaces for both himself and - possibly - Mr. Loud.

"So I just sign this and... That's it? No more experiments? No more camera's?"

Nodded slightly while turning away from Lincoln , Lisa reached out and grabbed a pen from her desk. "Yes, although I cannot say the same about the rest of our... My sister's. "

Lincoln left out a humored chuckle before taking the pen and signing his name in the spot that he - presumed - was left for him. Putting the 'contact' down he felt like... It wasn't enough, not for him at least. So before the little girl could turn to observe his signature Lincoln reached out and grabbed her under her arms, picking her up and pulling her into a hug as he held her to his chest.

"Thank you." It came out as but a whisper , but with his mouth right by her ear it didn't need to be any louder then that for her to hear him.

Despite claiming to have renounced her inane human emotions, she couldn't stop herself from trying to wrap herself around her brothers frame. Turning her head so she could press her face into the crook of his neck she did her best to recuperate the hug.

"Now..." Lincoln pulled away slightly, using one hand to wipe away a few tears that had accumulated in his eyes but he left her sitting on his hip, not once feeling the slightest bit of strain from doing so. "Why don't we go get rid of those last two cameras huh... Little sis. "

Lisa Nodded as she dried her face, Lincoln already taking steps towards the door. "Yes, I do think that would be best." When inside Lincoln's room Lisa pointed out where the camera was and were the other cameras were also sitting turned off. Although she admitted that the one that had been in his robot toy had been placed by Luan and not herself, she had just managed to access it for her own gain.

"Right, Ok I'll grab Lana's tools and probably Lana herself, then We can get these down. Be right back. "

Lisa Nodded absent-mindedly as she stared up at the hidden cameras hiding spot. Her mind went back to Lincoln's words in her room... "Wait a second," Slowly Lisa grew a small, joyous smile as she realised just what her brother had done. "You're welcome Big brother."

* * *

Dinner had come and gone. The resident jock of the family slowly trudged her way upstairs, her feet nearly dragging against the floor and at one point she nearly tripped herself up as she went up to her room.

Once inside her room she slowly trudged her way to her bed before flopping down face first onto it, the springs groaned and protested against the sudden weight before settling down once more.

She was bored, horribly bored. Something that was made worse by the fact that she had absolutely nothing to do anymore. She couldn't go outside, she couldn't watch Tv, she couldn't even throw a ball against the wall to alleviate her mind numbing boredom.

She had already lost just about everything yesterday. Her side of the room had been stripped clean of anything and everything sports related, leaving it very bland and stale. Even the growing collections of trophies had been removed, leaving nothing but empty shelves, boxes and blank spaces. The only thing in the room that was hers was her clothes, bed and the growing pile of homework.

Homework that she did not have the energy to even be bothered to look at. And so Lynn was confined to laying on her bed till much later for when she would fall asleep. Although she doubted that would happen. Due to not partaking in any physical activity, she had not worn herself down and as such did not feel even close to as tired as she should have at this part in the afternoon.

It's wasn't like she could talk to Lucy or any of her other sisters either, the resident goth was not so keen on the idea of sharing a room with her at the moment and she was certain that none of the other girls would have wanted to talk to her either. Not that she was in a particularly talkative mood herself.

she'd give anything for just five minutes to be able to play sports just once until her punishment was over, if it ever was. Today was her first day with the punishment and it was already hard on her, she couldn't play games during the lunch break, she couldn't participate in P.E anymore, she was removed from all of her sports teams and worst of all, all of her teachers were cracking down on her to get both the classwork and her homework done.

She truly had no time to herself during the school hours and now that she was home and had that time, she had nothing to do. No way to keep herself entertained or distracted from her thoughts... And homework.

Lynn hadn't put too much thought into how severely her punishments would effect her but now that it was affecting her she wished that she had argued against it. Or at least tried to make things easier for herself. Although her mother had said that she would listen to any complaints in regards to the rules, the jock doubted anything she said would change her mother's mind. Besides, she had a punishment against her not rules... At least ignoring the two that individually affected her.

During the chaos that was fixing up Lincoln's room, Rita had dragged her away into her own room to quickly state the two rules she was to follow. No more indoor sports or sportslike activities and No more forcing anyone to be her sparing partner... Ever.

And that would only happen until after she was let go of her punishment, if that would ever happen.

Still it rubbed her the wrong way, knowing that she was being restricted in doing the things she loved even after her punishment was over.

The jock could feel a headache coming on just at the thought of it all, she groaned slightly as she turned on her side, facing towards the middle of the room. Even from here she could see that Lucy's bed was empty, while not an uncommon thing - as Lucy liked to hide in the vents - it still made the room feel more empty then it was. The sight of Lucy's drawers being opened showed signs that the resident goth had taken a small amount of her clothes out of their room.

Probably so she could keep bunking with Luna and Luan. Not that she blamed her for it either, if the roles were reversed then maybe she'd do the same thing... Although she doubted Lucy would ever intentionally do something that could or would harm someone, much less Lincoln. She also doubted she'd share with the performing duo willingly, much less with any of the other girls as well.

From her spot in her room the jock could faintly make out the sounds of a heated argument, judging from the voices it was her mother and father, she wasn't sure what it was about but she hoped it had nothing to do with that God awful tie. She let out a long sigh as she turned to face the ceiling... It was going to be long few weeks.

* * *

Despite the rapid changes, the loud girls were able to rapidly adjust to keep themselves comfortable. Or the best they could get for now.

Lori was doing her best to keep an ear out for any signs of trouble, or sign that an argument could start. Despite it being quite late at night now. Although she agreed with her mother that there needed to be changes she was still a little hesitant to let her take the reins fully, especially with the twins.

The twins were both catalysts towards setting the other one off and their fighting had gotten so rough over the past few months that it was often difficult to separate them. So the last thing they needed was accidentally hurting someone and getting themselves into more trouble, especially since it was those two who had the hardest time adapting to the new rules.

Specifically, if she overheard correctly, Lola was no longer permitted to drive her princess car inside the house. Nor was she allowed to attempt to blackmail anyone, subsequently she had her little book of secrets (on everyone else) taken away. Lana though had a harder time, due to many of her pets being venomous, it was required that they be removed from the house... Permanently.

The mechanic was being given plenty of time to find her pets a safe home, like with friends, zoo's and animal preservation shelters. But she had a deadline to meet until the animals were just straight up taken away. She was allowed to keep Izzy, Hops and El Diablo and any future pets would be run through the matriarch before she could keep them.

The young mechanic was also no longer allowed to purposely break things in an attempt to be taught how to fix them, Rita decided the best thing to do here was to get Lana several books on engineering, repairs and such and So forth. Just to keep her busy for a short while.

Lori couldn't help but feel bad for the mechanic, as she seemed to receive a bit of a harder punishment then most of them... As far as she could tell anyway. She herself has come off quite lightly, she was restricted to a certain amount of phone usage per week. Lori had to be constantly aware of the time she used it for, as her new limitation left her with just barely half the normal amount of time she would spend on her phone.

She could easily go over that, there were no restrictions that stopped her, it was just that if her phone bill went over the agreed upon amount, she would be in a hell of a lot of trouble.

That just ment a lot less phone calls and lot more texting to compensate for it, she also had to be mindful of any of her social media browsing, as that used up a lot of data too. It was an adjustment that she had to get used to, at the very least it gave her a reason to hang around her friends a little more and maybe if she wasn't on her phone so much she could get to do other things too.

normally the eldest loud girl would try to be on her phone even in places that she shouldn't have been, like in class and when she worked at Gus' Grubs and games. With her new restriction she couldn't help but see how foolish that was now.

Shaking off the thought the eldest girl turned to get more comfortable, seeing her immediate younger sister Leni already fast asleep. She couldn't stop her thoughts from drifting to her brother, was he alright? Or was he having trouble sleeping?

She didn't know and she couldn't relax properly until she knew the answer. Slowly she removed herself from her bed, taking cautious steps to not disturb anyone. She cringed as her door squeaked as it opened, she waited on baited breath before making her way out the room and down the hall.

Once at the end of the hallway she placed her hand on the door, feeling the cracks and chips in it as she did so. She held the handle as she opened the door in an attempt to keep it silent, flinching as she heard the metal scrap slightly.

Once open enough for her to peak through she looked to her brothers bed... And found herself looking at something she would never have expected.

Not only was Lincoln laying down in his new bed, looking cosy and warm but two other occupants were also present at the same time. First - and most surprisingly - was Lisa, who was laying on the side closest to the wall. A book of theoretical physics stuck laying on her stomach, as if she had fallen asleep reading it. The other occupant was little Lily herself, wedged between the two of them as she held onto her older brother, practically death gripping onto his Pajama shirt.

"Aww." She quickly clamped her mouth shut as she realised how loud she was being. What must have been a small hang out session had resulted in the three of them falling asleep together, the eldest girl wished she could capture this moment on camera but knew all too well that the flash of the camera could awaken any of them, and she didn't have the heart to do so.

Noticing that Lisa was still wearing her glasses the eldest stepped forwards before leaning over and slowly removing them from the geniuses face. She folded them down before placing them and her book on the small table.

Knowing that she could get in trouble for being up so late she decided to take her leave, Slowly pulling the door closed with minimal sound.

Deciding it would be best to get some sleep she turned back to her room, there we no way she was going to be able to drive everyone to the mall tomorrow while half-asleep after all.


	24. Chapter 24

Saturday was normally a day that many people would often use to rest. Catch up on lost sleep. Or even just laze around for the whole day, without a care in the world.

That last choice certainly applied to two of the Loud Houses residents, both Lincoln and Lisa were sitting down in the living room. The boy was reading through one of the few comics his good buddy Clyde had leant him recently, while Lisa was continuing with her relaxing stimulation with her book of theoretical physics.

Even if no-one else could consider that relaxing.

It seemed a good long sleep on a real bed was exactly what Lincoln needed, both to clear his head and improve his mood.

In fact, it very much felt like a fog had been lifted off of his mind and he was able to make clearer thoughts. And he was glad for it, as he realised that there were a few things he had been doing... Wrong.

In a sense of the word.

Every day ever since he had put his 'plan' into motion he had isolated himself in the hopes that his absence would spark a result out of everyone. While that was true for Lisa, it didn't have the same results for everyone else. So he had come up with a slight, adjustment to his idea.

What was better then hiding away to not be involved with everyone?

Being around them and making a habit of not getting involved. Certainly that would... Or should, make a stronger point to everyone.

At least he hoped it would.

But none of that was important right now. What was important was what else was going on around the two of them. As the two - reconnected - siblings took their time enjoying what they were doing, the other members of the house were moving around the house. Getting ready for their regular visit to the mall.

The two of them would not be joining them, as Lincoln held no desire to carry everyone else's bags and Lisa had no reason to join them as she had a plethora of books and entertainment at her disposal. Should she need or want them.

It came as a surprise to Mrs. Loud about their decision to stay behind but Lincoln assured her that he would look after his sister. She was quite easy to handle when she wasn't blowing stuff up.

Of which she was now banned from doing, or more specifically, she was banned from performing experiments or anything that could result in an explosion. No matter how minor.

As he had come to learn from Lisa, Mrs. Loud had set various punishments for each of the girls, sans Lily of course. So he was to expect a few changes in the imminent future.

Not that that could change the past.

The white haired boy shook off that thought, the past didn't matter any more. What mattered was what happened from here on out, no matter how long It took. Personally? He couldn't be bothered to put up the act of avoiding everyone anymore.

Make no mistake, the boy was still very upset over what happened but over the past two weeks he had simmered down. He still, borderline, hated the rest of the girls, even if that word was a little strong in most areas. He just couldn't be bothered to hide away and bore himself to death in his own room.

During the commotion that was the Loud house, Lori walked her way into the living room. Peering into her purse to be sure she had everything she needed before they all left. She couldn't help but notice the two on the couch, seeing both of them on one end of the couch each with their back to the arms. Had the two of them been slightly taller, their feet would have been touching in the middle, as each of them had their legs stretched as far as they could.

The eldest couldn't stop herself from remembering what she had seen last night. It was good to know that someone had managed to get back into Lincoln's good graces. It even served as a nice reminder that each of them had a shot at also doing the same. They just had to earn it.

Snapping out of her thoughts Lori cleared her throat, gaining the duo's attention.

"Well, we'll be going shortly." Lori's head turned as she watched Luna walk her way to the front door, where she left to wait by the van. "I know you two are staying but is there anything you can think of that you may need?... Or want?"

"Negative, eldest sibling. I require nothing."

" Same. " The sole boy agreed with Lisa, shaking his head before returning to his... Clyde's comic.

Lori watched as her mother, accompanied by the younger girls, made their way for the door. It wouldn't be long until she would be holding everyone else up, so she had to make this short. Especially since they had to get to the mall by a certain time as Luna was expecting to meet her friend there.

"Well, alright then. Text me or someone if that changes ok." Getting a nod from the two of them , Lori took her leave, lest she get complained at by everyone else.

* * *

Despite their mother coming with them, Lori was still the one to do the driving today. A small privilege that she wasn't going to squander any time soon.

From her spot in the driver's seat she could see that Her mother looked tired. Both mentally and physically. A few of them had heard the muffled argument last night that the two parents had had. Although none of them knew _what_ they were arguing about, Lori was sure it was about Lincoln. Or about the way they had treated him.

Sadly she didn't have any way to contribute as she didn't even know if she was right or not.

Her eyes glanced up the walls of the mall as she pulled into the parking lot. It didn't take her long to find a spot somewhat close to the entrance. As each of her sibling began to file out of the van she turned to her mother, giving a sympathetic look.

"You gonna be alright?"

" Hmm? " Rita paused as she felt a small yawn escape her. "Oh yeah, just need to get a little coffee in me is all."

Lori nodded as she pulled the keys and began to climb out of the van. Giving her mother a moment to do the same before all of them began to make their way to the doors. Making small talk as they did so.

Once inside the group of ten stood around for a moment, trying to decide who should split up into which groups.

"Come on Mom!" Lori frowned at the way Lola tried to pull her mother by her sleeve. Lori knew that there was a few beauty and clothe stores in the direction she was pulling her. So it was no surprise but Lori would have preferred if Lola had asked instead of demand.

keeping Lily balanced on her hip Rita reached over to Lynn, who had been trying to secretly sneak away, before pinching her ear. Pulling her sporty daughter along with her, Rita followed Lola as she skipped ahead.

"Look a sale!" Leni pointed excitedly at a close by shoe store before making a B-line for said store. Their numbers were dropping faster then Lori thought they would.

feeling a tug at her shorts Lori looked down to see Lana trying get her attention. "What is it Lana?"

" C -can we go to the hardware store? I need some things. " The little mechanic was pointing towards one of the signs, which depicted where said store was.

A quick glance at the rest of them showed both Luan and Lucy waking off in their own direction together. Which left just Luna with them. But since she was waiting for her own friend Lori couldn't, reasonably, ask her to take Lana with her.

"Alright, let's go." Lot held out her hand, waiting just long enough for Lana to take a hold of it before waking towards the escalator. She gave Luna a little wave as she left. Shame, she would have liked to see Luna's friend. Oh well, there was next time.

As the two of them ascended, Lori pulled out her phone before sending a group text to everyone that had come along to the mall about what time they needed to meet up for lunch and where. While also reminded Leni that there were not one hundred minutes in an hour.

"So," Lori started , as the two of them stepped off and began to walk in the direction of the hardware store. "What are you looking for? Tools? Nails?"

Instead of answering, Lana dug her free hand into her overalls front pocket. Feeling around for a moment before pulling out a scrunched up piece of paper. Letting go of Lori's hand, she unscrunched the paper before reading her own list.

"Uh... Sand paper, hinges, door handle, security chain... Uh, rim automatic deadlatch with Key-locking handle."

Lori blinked, not recognizing that last item on the list. Although that shouldn't have been much of a surprise. Considering that she knew a lot less then Lana did on the subject. Although she had to give Lana a bit of credit for being organised, unlike other times where she would just move around stores until she found something she liked.

"Alright, I'm sure we can find those and if not... We can always ask the staff."

Normally Lori would have objected to do everyone else's stops first, more willing to do her own over theirs. However, the store she wished to visit was also in the direction of the hardware store. She also had a sneaking suspicion of what Lana needed those things for, even if she wasn't going to ask about it.

Taking Lana's hand back into hers the two of them continued on their journey, Lori kept an eye out for anything that may interest her. She was also on the look out for anything that could benefit the family as a whole, although she wasn't entirely sure on what she was really looking for.

Eventually the two of them got to the hardware store, and before long Lori found herself looking over different kinds of Locks and handles. She was only half-heartedly looking as she had no idea what a rim Auto... Dead-key... Handle.

Whatever it was that Lana had called it, looked like.

Although she did spot a security chain easily. She had once considered the idea of having one of these on her own door before, just to keep everyone out of her own room but since she shared it with Leni she couldn't have it, not without having to explain how it worked everyday. Just the thought of that was enough to give Lori a small headache. Not to mention that the chain itself could be a hazard in the worst case scenario.

"What about this one?" She held up the chain to show to Lana, letting the mechanic come over and look it over.

"Yeah, that'll work." Lana nodded as she turned back to the many different handle and locks. "Keep a hold of that for me would ya. "

Holding the packaged chain in one hand, Lori continued to scan the upper shelves. She's wasn't sure what the handle that Lana wanted looked like but she was certain that she would recognise the name when she saw it. Slowly bit by bit the two of them shortened their search area, moving away from locks that did not match until they were left with just the handle style locks.

Lori would have asked what the lock looked like but she was sure she would have been lost in the description, the best she would remember would be if the handle was round or flat, curved or plain. Even then that wasn't descriptive enough.

"Found it!"

Lori put down the fancy handle she had been admiring to look down to Lana. Seeing her halfway wedged inbetween two of the shelves, where she slowly worked her way out, one hand holding onto the item of her desire.

There was a giddy look in her eye and Lori couldn't help but smile at her, it had been a while since she had seen Lana that happy. She was glad to see that she was recovering somewhat from whatever had plagued her earlier in the week but she also doubted she was completely fine. No-one rebounded that quickly after all.

As Lana turned it around to look at the other side her face dropped. "Oh."

Noticing the shift in Lana's mood, Lori knelt down till they were close to eye level. "Something wrong?"

" It's the wrong one. " Lana spoke almost dejected. Flipping the side she was looking at over to Lori she pointed at the keyhole. "There's supposed to be a little cover that goes over there, to protect it." Lana shook her head, as if she were trying to force any bad emotions out of her head.

Taking the current one from her hands Lori looked it over, getting a good idea as to what exactly she was supposed to be looking for, whilst also mentally adding on the latch that Lana spoke of. It was then that she realised that she had severely misinterpreted what she was looking for.

Lori had been expecting to find a lock that had two handles, one for each side of the door, instead this had a single metal box that had a handle and keyhole, while the other side was just a small keyhole with a little curve at the bottom to act as a handle.

If such a lock was installed on a door it would make it nearly impossible to open from the outside, as you would need the key to open it, unlike most other handles. That was actually pretty smart, Lori realised. Especially if this lock was going to be used on Lincoln's new door. It would most definitely stop them from just barging into his room if he had his door shut.

Lana may have been trying to keep it a secret from Lincoln but she made no effort to hide it away from the rest of them.

"Well," Lori started , putting the now unneeded lock away. "I'm sure we'll find it."

Seeing one of the stores workers walking down the aisle, She stood up quickly. "Excuse me."

* * *

At a different part of the mall two rockers were walking side by side, a hint of giddiness could be seen coming off from them as they walked over to their destination.

After everyone else has split off to do their own thing, Luna had waited by the entrance for her friend Sam to arrive. Luckily she didn't need to wait for too long as the blonde haired girl had come in soon after the last of her siblings had left her sight.

The two rockers had greeted each other before walking off. There was one thing that was on their minds right now.

Mike swagger.

There was a small booth here in the royal woods mall that would be selling a select few tickets for his upcoming concert, and the two teens were eager to arrive early so they could try to snag some good tickets. Although there was a high chance these tickets wouldn't be good as most would have probably been booked online.

Still, to them, having any seats were better then not going to the concert at all.

As the two of them walked Luna couldn't help but laminate on the most recent development that had occurred at home. Lisa had gotten Lincoln a bed, had taken out the many cameras that she had installed around his room, given him a written up agreement to not do experiments on him and not only that had managed to earn her brothers forgiveness. Although Luna supposed that she had earned that, so there was no need to argue against it.

Not only that but they all had been punished in a way, she herself was No longer allowed to play her music so loud. She could still play her music just fine, she just wasn't allowed to pump up her music past six. Which admittedly frustrated her as her music was best when the amp was at eleven. But it certainly beat having all of her musical equipment being taken away.

Even her comedic sister had gotten a worse punishment then her, no longer was Luan allowed to play her pranks. At least her massive ones, small pranks like whoopie cushions were acceptable but nothing on the level of her April fools pranks. Her puns were fine, so long as she wasn't excessively annoying. The prankster had even lost her book O' Pranks. As she had called it.

Their mother had taken a peak inside it after she got it from them, Luna was sure of it, she couldn't help but feel like that was somehow connected with her parents arguments last night. She was also sure that everybody in the house had heard them, not just herself and Luan.

"I'm so excited!" Sam squealed next to her, arms closing in on her chest. Luna was glad for this, as she had been pulled out of her inner thoughts. "Just a few more minutes until we get those tickets, then we'll be all set for the show."

She turned to the purple rocker , giving off a happy smile. "Aren't you excited Luna? "

Giving Sam her own smile, she nodded her head. "Absolutely dude, this is going to be rocking."

The two of laughed as they passed by a few stores, catching the attention of a few people. Who after a moment looked away. Luna couldn't help but feel like they were judging her, or at least assuming something.

Ignoring it she decided to take a peak into the stores they were passing, a nail salon, game store, an art store.

without realizing it, Luna had stopped walking. Eyes fixated on the display. Sam hasn't noticed her friend stop and kept going, not realising that she was leaving her friend behind.

As if transfixed Luna walked closer to the store, looking into the glass that separated her from the display. There was a few things that she expected, paints, brushes, pencil sets and a few more artsy items. But what really got her attention was what was on the middle of the display.

A medium sized electronic tablet that had its own little stand it could sit on, it even came with a stylus. It was an art-sketch. If she was right it must have been one of the newer models. Just looking at the box on display told her everything she needed to know about it. Hours of charge time for remote locations, 5GB of memory, able to connect to the internet to download and upload images. It even has several in built drawing tutorials for beginners.

She couldn't help but imagine what it would look like if Lincoln were to use one. Would he sit at a table and use the stand? Or would he use just the screen and have it on his lap?

Seeing the device put a pang of guilt in Luna's stomach. It was her fault that Lincoln's old book had been destroyed, if she didn't exaggerate as much as she did then his book wouldn't have been burned and then soaked. Had she just approached her mother, Like Lucy had been telling her to, then a lot of what was happening could have been avoided.

She had been thinking about finding some replacement for him, but she knew that getting any little book wasn't going to be enough. It was like trying to replace one of her own rare CD's with a blank CD. It would be insulting.

But this, it looked like it was perfect. Lincoln would be able to save as many drawings on it as he wanted, he could even upload them to have them stored somewhere else if he ever needed to make some space. Not only that but it was the type of item that no-one else would touch because it cost... $449.99

The same that Her ticket was going to cost her.

She could feel the two parts of her conflict with each other, deciding on what to do. What to prioritise over the other, it should have been a no brainer really but the memory of how Luna had managed to save up the money for her ticket was dragging her thoughts in favour of the ticket.

Her eyes darted to the little red sticker that said 'limited stock'.

"Luna!" her head turned to the voice, seeing Sam power walking over to her. "There you are, I thought I had lost you."

Luna realised that she had essentially ditched Sam , giving her a sheepish smile she rubbed the back of her head. "Oops, sorry dude. Didn't realise."

" It's cool, just we gotta hurry. The tickets are about to go on sale and the line is already forming. "

Looking back at the item, she couldn't help but feel like she was being torn. Between Lincoln, her brother, and Sam, her friend/ secret crush.

She was probably going to regret this later.

* * *

Later that afternoon, after everyone else has returned home from the mall, another sibling meeting was put in order.

Although this time it was a little different. This time Lincoln was joining them.

The white haired boy was sat close by to the door, crossed legged and his arms to his side. Lisa, the resident genius, was sat in his lap, continuing to read from her own book. Hardly giving anyone in the room a second glance.

"Alright. Everybody's here." Lori banged her shoe, gaining everyone's attention. She was glad for the shift in attention, as she could feel several hints of jealousy in the air over the display of Lincoln and Lisa.

"Is There anything anyone wants to say before I get started?"

" I do. " Nine pairs of eyes turned to the white haired boy. "What? I can't talk or something ?"

"Of course you can." Lori nodded down to him. " I just literally didn't expect you to is all, so what have you got to say? "

Lincolns face turned into a deadpan stare as he looked over each of the girls in the room before stopping on Lynn, where he held his gaze for a moment before looking away.

"The only reason I'm here right now is to make sure that nothing here will effect me. I don't want you lot to make plans that will interfere with anything I'm doing or, if worse comes to worse, you activate the Sister fight protocol. "

Lori winced at the mention of the protocol. Knowing what Lincoln was going on about, having heard it from him during their talk. Luckily Lincoln wouldn't have to worry about that anymore, as she had formerly disregarded the entire thing, even if she had not told anyone about it yet. She was about to say this to the white haired boy but was quickly cut off by Lynn.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

Most of the girls turned to Lynn with a small glare, none forgiving her for what she had done. Lincoln himself looked at her indifferently, not caring about what she said but not completely ignoring her either, if only because he actually wanted to be here out of choice.

"I need to know if I need to plan an overnight stay at Clyde's or something, unless you _want _what happened last time to happen again. "

This time most of the girls flinched, one of Lynn's hands ghosted over her right thigh. Memories of casts and crutches flashed before her mind. It went without saying that the last time they had used the SFP it had not ended on a high note, definitely not the way any of them had wanted or intended it to.

It was actually surprising how none of them had gotten in trouble back then but they supposed it was because most of them had been harmed in some way. Seeing that none of them were going to argue with him on the subject Lincoln decided to continue.

"Anyway, I also wanted to let you know that you can expect to see me around the house more. But only because I'm bored of being stuck in my room."

" Does that mean you forgive us? " Lola raised her hand up as she spoke, gaining Lincoln's attention. The white haired boy gave a humored scoff before shaking his head.

"Did you not just listen to me?" He shook his head as he wrapped his arms around Lisa and rested his chin atop her head. "No, I'm just not confining myself to my room because I'm bored and before you ask, yes I'm trying to make as many arrangements with my friends as possible but they're busy most of the time."

" No I will not get involved with anything you want to do. " he turned to face Luan as he said this, having seen her begin to raise a finger to say something. Hopefully cutting her off stopped her from making a pun as well.

"But you forgave Lisa! " Lola shot a hand out towards the scientist that sat on Lincoln's lap, scowling as she did so.

Lisa looked up from her book for a moment, not bothering to give her pageant obsessed sister a verbal reply, she stuck her tongue out at her before putting her nose back into her book. Completely missing the surprised looks on everyone else's faces. Although Lincolns was more proud then anything.

"Well Lisa earned it, Lola. Unlike a certain eight... Sorry a certain ten individuals, who I currently have zero relations with. "

Each of the girls flinched at that, feeling a stab in their hearts. Before anyone else could say anything Lori butted in.

"Alright we're getting off track here. Is there anything else you want to say Lincoln? Or can we start?"

" I'm done. "

Nodding at him the eldest directed her attention away from him. "Alright, anybody else got anything to say? " she swept over each of her younger siblings. Expecting at least one of them to say something. When no-one did she continued.

"Alright then. As all of you know. Mom said there was going to be changed to the chores, and now she has made up her mind on the subject."

"Firstly, each of us will be responsible for our own rooms. It's not a single one of us that has that sole responsibility anymore. " Her eyes darted over to Lincoln as she said that, knowing the boy was more then responsible for the cleanliness of the household. "That means, you must empty your own bins, you must put your clothes away, you must vacuum your own room. "

"Moms also going to make a board to place in the kitchen to let everyone know what chores they will have that day, so that way we won't have too many people doing a single task. "

"If you have a problem with this then you need to talk to mom about it, yes you can trade chores. " Lori said that last part as she looked over to Lola, Lucy and Luan. Knowing how they had specific chores they did not like to do. Two of the three aforementioned girls dropped their hands, the third did not even raise theirs to begin with at all.

"Alright, that's all I've got to say for now." She preemptively raised her shoe to bang it like a gavel. "Anyone got anything to say... No?" She smacked her shoe down. " Then this meeting is over. "

* * *

**A/N: Just came back and updated mistakes and what not.**

**Also forgot to put this here earlier, I will be taking a small break from No Such Luck, No Such Luck while I work on my other story Moving In. I've finally managed to get past my writers block over there and I am feeling motivated to get more done soon.**

**So if you haven't yet, go and take a look at that if you want to read other pieces of my work. Let me know what you think too.**


	25. Chapter 25

Like an old machine being given new parts, the loud houses Sunday routine sputtered and spurred as it tried to adjust to the new additions.

Namely, the new schedule regarding what each loud sibling had to do in terms of chores. At first there was a bit of bumbling around as several of the girls argued over who did what or, more accurately, who _wouldn't_ do what. Eventually most of them managed to settle down and get on with just a few complaints but overall the great machine was warning up once more.

So far, things hadn't changed much. Lisa Still did the bills and Lori still did the laundry, however, Lucy and Lola had been put in charge of cleaning the basement and dusting things off while Lynn Jr. Was left to clean all the dishes by herself. Luan had chosen to clean the bathroom, much to the relief of the rest of the girls, except Lana. Lana did what she did best, cleaned up after their many, many pets.

Whose numbers were actually slowly dwindling down as she found acceptable home for the many pets she had kept hidden. Not that she was happy about this mind you.

Luna had taken to helping Lincoln sort out the trash, emptying the many bins that quite literally littered the house. She even made sure to help with carrying everything out front and into the trash bins so that he wouldn't have needed to drag them across the floor. Overall, the chores had been done slightly faster then normal. Even with everyone having to clean their own rooms and make their own beds.

Despite the close proximity to him, Luna didn't bother trying to talk to Lincoln. Unless she was saying that she had handled something, like getting the bin from Lori's room or Lynn's room. Outside of that, there was little said, if anything at all.

Not that she could blame him, with the tension between them currently, it was very surprising that he was able to tolerate her presence at all. But that had been this morning and right now the rocker was mulling around her room, half heartedly listening to the music play from her radio as she sat on the beanbag. Lucy was actually up on the top bunk of the bed, scribbling away into her poem book in her usual silent state.

Luna turned her head enough to peak under the entire bed, seeing the bag that held the very important - and very expensive - Art-Sketch electronic drawing pad. Which is what it was really called, unlike when she had called it a simple tablet. Apparently those were two very different things, But hey... How was she to know?

She was right when she thought that she was going to regret buying it but not in the way most would think. What she regretted was telling Sam that she wouldn't be joining her at the concert, that she wouldn't be able to when she had something far more important that needed seeing to.

The look on Sam's face was enough to crush her, seeing the disappointment and hearing her sound a little down after she broke the news to her. The concert, while not a once in a lifetime event, was something the two of them had planned on doing for ages. They were determined to enjoy it, even after their other friends had to bail on the plan already.

She wanted to explain to her about it, tell her why but... She couldn't, she didn't want to reveal _that_ to Sam and possibly lose her too. As a friend mind you. In the end Sam had decided to not get tickets herself as their would have been no fun in going on her own. So the two of them had spent their time just browsing the mall and looking at stuff, even though Luna wasn't able to get anything after buying the Drawing Pad.

Luna wanted to just give it to Lincoln, apologise and... Well, move on. But she doubted that she could dump the thing onto his legs and be forgiven like that. No, like he said before, she needed to figure out how to sort out the mess between the two of them. To see, realise and admit to her faults and actively try to better herself not for Lincoln - necessarily - but for herself.

She had thought about that a lot. The rough patches that had existed between them long before this entire debacle, the way how she wasn't always on his side or supporting him, especially when she should have been. Not to mention the times she had been actively against him for no reason, other then having been in a bad mood.

She had a lot of ground to cover before she could try to talk to him about it.

"You going to do it?" Luna flinched as Lucy spoke, fortunately, she did not scream out of surprise. Perhaps she was getting better at handling herself after spending more time with the goth girl.

Turning to look up to her bed, she came face to face with Lucy.

"BLOODY HELL!"

She fell back as she attempted to scoot away from her in alarm. Feeling her back bump into the chest of drawers that was behind her, her heart raced as her breathing got laboured. For a brief moment Lucy let out a smile, a very toothy smile that did not help Luna to calm herself down.

She definitely wasn't any better with being scared by the goth then she thought.

"Do You really have to do that mate? You nearly gave me a heart attack dude."

Lucy shrugged her shoulders before she sat down on the spot next to the beanbag, giving Luna time to pick herself up and drop herself back where she had been.

"What were you saying before ya nearly killed me?"

"Are you going to give it to Lincoln? It seems pointless to me to hide it from him, better to do it now rather then later."

"I know. " Luna rubbed the spot between her eyebrows, feeling a small throb in the back of her head. She reached over to her radio and turned it down a notch. "It's just not that easy Lucy, I could give it to him but I don't know what to say to him to... You know, apologise."

" _You worry too much about the outcome, so you put no effort into trying._ An excerpt from one of my books, that is how you feel. "

"Well..." Looking over to Lucy, the rocker couldn't help but feel like she had hit her problem right on the nose. " I guess you're not wrong but how can I just... I can't just go and try without thinking it through first. "

"If the time is right, you won't need to think about it, you'll know what you'll want to say as you say it."

"I suppose you're right? But how am I supposed to know when the time is right? Surely I wouldn't just... Know."

" You remember last Christmas? " Luna's face scrunched up as she turned towards her younger sister, wondering just how she had managed to jump from the last conversation to this. "Remember how you kept trying to write a new Christmas song? Yet never seemed to get it 'right '."

" What's that got to do with anything Luce? "

"How did you know that the final product was right? The song we sang for Mr. Grouse, you had never sung it before yet you knew it was perfect. How?"

" Well... " the rocker paused as she thought about it. "I guess I just... Knew."

" You knew, just like now, when you talk to Lincoln you'll know what to say when the time is right and when it's the time right. Don't over think it, just try to do it. "

"You know what dude? I think you're right. I just... I'm nervous you know? I can't go down their expecting to be forgiven, No matter what I do and... That's what I want, to be forgiven."

Shaking her head Lucy let out one of her Monotone sigh's. "Then don't," Seeing the look of surprise on Luna's face Lucy decided to clarify. "What I mean is, don't go do it to be forgiven but to prove that you are trying to be forgiven. It's ultimately his decision whether he does or doesn't and nothing is going to change that."

Laying down on the beanbag, Luna let out a sigh as she knew that Lucy was right. She had no say in when or if she was forgiven but she had all the power to at least try to earn it first. Sometimes she forgot just how smart people could be, here Lucy - an eight year old - was, telling her about earning forgiveness. Must have been all those grim books she was reading.

"Say Lucy, you mind letting me borrow that book you mentioned, I'm a little interested in reading it. Especially if it's got lines as good as the one you said."

" No! I-I mean, I can't. " Hearing Lucy spit out her words rapidly caused the rocker to turn to her with worry. Despite looking a s blank as ever, she swore she could see a hint of worry on her. "I loaned it... To, uh... To Haiku."

" Right... Let me know when you get it back would ya? "

* * *

Normally Lori would spend Sunday both trying to relax and deal with any homework she had, fortunately, she did not have homework just yet. However, she was very far from relaxed. As she sat at the dinning table, her eyes scanned over several bits of old paper, a few years old at the least.

On it was the somewhat detailed explanation to the sister fight protocol, something that had been made years ago with the intention of sorting out any conflict that any of the girls could have gotten into. Even years later it had been put in use.

As she stared down at the paper, read each thing that was put on it years ago. She couldn't help but see the very obviously outdated rules and expectations. This has been originally made before Lincoln had gotten his own room, so the linen closet was labeled as 'a viable place to cool off' on top of other things.

Like the fact that, during its creation, only the older five girls were able to even contribute to it. Given that their messy scribbles were at the bottom of the paper and nobody else's. Lucy was probably only just a baby at the time and those younger then her? They hadn't even been born yet.

So much had changed since then, with the closest being Lincoln's room it was no longer viable, with their being more of them it was harder to separate each other and it was especially difficult to keep Lincoln out of it when he was a lot older and a lot more involved with all of them.

As the old bit of paper had reminded her, they had agreed to keep Lincoln away from any fighting when he was young so he wouldn't be exposed to it. The problem was, he wasn't a baby anymore and often actively tried to defuse any fighting that he felt he could. Now it has put them in a situation where using the very thing that was to - ultimately - protect Lincoln, was now causing him harm and grief.

She was glad to decided to rewrite the entire protocol again. It would take a while and she had to find proper solutions to any fighting or problems but it should be worth it in the end, she hoped at least.

So far she hasn't thought of much, the original had little that she wanted to keep, so she was forced to start from scratch. She knew she needed to involve every possible variable when making a single decision, as she had to think of the very many possible scenarios where and when two or more siblings could or would fight.

Yes, siblings, not sisters.

Lori found it ridiculous that Lincoln should continue to be left in the dark, as the last few days had proven, he could and would get into just as big of an argument with the rest of them as they could. So not including him would cause more issues then resolve them.

It was just a matter of figuring out how to keep the squabbling culprits separated without escalating the issue further and being able to sort the issue out instead of waiting until people moved on without resolving their issues. Which was a lot harder then she realised when she needed to account for eleven of them.

How had she done this so easily so many years ago? Surely not _that_ much had changed other then their numbers increasing and Lincoln being moved to the closet.

So then, why was it so hard?

Tapping her pen against a blank piece of paper, she tried to visualise each possible scenario that would eventually come up. Now, it made sense to isolate anyone who was fighting until they calmed down, so that they could then talk it out. But the biggest issue was then, what if the two arguing parties shared the same room? They certainly couldn't take up the kitchen or bathroom anymore, that was asking for trouble.

Not to mention that it would cause problems for everyone else.

sighing Lori laid her head down on the table before crossing her arms over her head. Why couldn't this be simpler? If she could just get rid of the protocol fully, she would. But she knew the girls would fight her over it, say it was fine the way it was. The best she could do was reveal an alternative, up to date, rendition of the original.

The sound of footsteps came from behind her, not that she cared. They seemed to stop just behind her after they entered the room, then they started again and she could tell that whoever it was was walking around the table. The sound of a chair being pulled out came from opposite of where she was sitting and a brief glance revealed that it was Lincoln.

With a comic in hand, he had taken a seat in the spot opposite her own. She could see the frustration in his eyes, something had ticked him off the wrong way recently, yet he seemed to be be trying to hide it. Or control it at least. She wasn't sure why he was bothering to hide it, if he was having problems - especially with someone - he should have the freedom to express those problems.

Granted if they had had that mindset from the start none of this would be happening, so that was a little hypocritical.

Deciding that she wasn't going to get much more done, she placed her hands together, somewhat close to the middle of the table.

"You alright? You look annoyed."

For a moment it seemed like he had ignored her, Lori almost began to feel dejected before Lincoln looked up to her and, after a moment of internal struggle, sighed as he placed down the comic.

"N-... I'm not as good as I could be." He's placed his elbow on the table before resting his head on his hand. "Mo- Rita has Lynn in the living room, doing her homework. I had been watching TV, for once, but I don't want to be near her."

" You not got anything else you can do? Games? Go out with your friends? " Lori bite her lip as thought of something else but wasn't sure how he would respond to it. She certainly didn't want to upset him either, least she ruin what little connection she had left with him.

"No." Lincoln's eyes drew themselves to the bits of paper on the table as he drummed his fingers on the table, seemingly in boredom. "What are you doing? "

"Oh... Uh." Lori but her lip as her eyes dropped down to look away. She's wasn't sure if she should tell him about the improved - or soon to be made - version of the sister fight protocol. Given his previous experience with it, she supposed that he would never want to hear those words ever again.

Then again... On the other hand, if he was made aware, he wouldn't be at all surprised when she announced it. And he could help, given that he probably had the most input on the matter it only made sense that he should be able to voice said input.

"Well... I'm... Ah..." Her thumbs rubbed against each other as she tried to find the best way to word it. She didn't want to make his mood worse after all.

"Well I had decided that, " quickly looking around to be sure no-one was around to eavesdrop, Lori lowered her voice as she leaned forwards slightly. "After our last talk," she used a little emphases to refer to his rant that happened just a few days ago before returning to speak at a normal volume. "It seemed important that I needed to go and... Upgrade the sister Fight Protocol. "

For the briefest of moments Lori could see panic cross its way over Lincoln's eyes, how his hands twitched and bawled into fists and how his shoulders seemed to square out. Although, she did note that he seemed more defensive over fearful. Perhaps he had grown a bigger spine than she had already thought.

It was no secret that Lincoln had trouble with simply standing up for himself or resisting against anything the girls wanted him to do with them. Often to the point that he gave in to just about everything. It seemed, if one good thing were to ever come out of this, that Lincoln had managed to grow a backbone and put his foot down where he needed to.

It was respectable.

"Anyway, you don't need to worry about it, I'm making sure to include you in this as much as everyone else." Lori tapped her finger against the newest piece of paper. She hoped that she hadn't just caused Lincoln to freak out or worry, as that was not her intention or desire.

Darting his eyes down to the scrapes of paper, the sole boy tried to make sense of what Lori had already done. Given that it was upside down and had Lori's hand resting on it did not help him. His eyes glided over to the older paper and before he knew what he was doing he had plucked the paper off the table and was holding it in his hand. Upon realising what he had done he looked up to Lori, expecting to see her being annoyed, or worse, angry at what he was doing.

instead he was met with a very calm look, it was like Lori didn't care about what he did but not in a harsh way, more of a encouraging manner without any of the hints.

"So is this?..." He waved the page slightly as he spoke.

"The old one? Yeah, take a look if you want, just remember it was made years ago, before even the twins were born. "

Flipping the page so that it was the right way, Lincoln began to read the worn of bit of paper. Doing his best to keep in mind that this had been done so long ago when things had been different. So different, in fact, that Lincoln's immediate thoughts on it was that it simply wouldn't work... At all. Then he remembered that it did work when it was made, at least he thought so and had simply lost effectiveness over time with the alterations to the house.

On top of which not even half of the rules were even applicable anymore as the linen closet had been turned into his room and was no longer a 'viable place ' cause it was his place. But it did explain why the girls wanted his room, they still clung onto the belief that his room had that same level of viability. You know, now that he thought about it, why didn't they just not kick him out?

Of his room that is. He would have been able to actually get a little one on one time with anyone who needed to use it to cool off. It made sense that if he started to distract them from whatever was annoying them then it wouldn't take nearly as long for them to calm down and cool off then if they were left to their own thoughts and devices. He had been left alone and he couldn't stop thinking about being forced outside, sure that was a lot bigger then accidentally buying the same dress as someone else but his point still applied.

"So... What have you got so far?"

Giving off a gentle smile Lori spun the page around and pushed it closer to the sole male child, giving him time to read through it and digest the information. She watched as his eyes moved, going over each of the few lines that she had written before darting back over to the old one and repeating the process.

In comparison, there was not a lot on the new one but that must have been due to not having been finished. Still, Lincoln could see that Lori was making some headway on it, doing her best to fit everyone into it as best she could. Still, he could see a few problems with some of the things that she was doing and before he knew it, he had swept up a pen and way already writing down on the paper.

Lori took no action to stop him, curious about what he was going to do. And honestly, if he felt like giving his own view on the matter, why should she stop him? She could do with the fresh perspective.

After a few moments Lincoln turned the page back to her, almost presenting it to her.

"How about this? "

Lori read over Lincoln's own additions, giving herself the time she needed to visualize them being used in practice over theory. It wasn't much of an addition but definitely something that she wouldn't have thought of herself and it certainly could be beneficial if implemented correctly. She couldn't find any faults with what Lincoln had put down, so she was going to leave it there until she went over this with her mother. She doubted that she would have liked her to begin to take charge again, not without her direct approval anyway.

"That's not too bad actually. I'll keep it there for now," Lori bend her arm so she could point her thumb behind her. "Just so you know, I'll have to go over this with mom, get her approval."

Lincoln's face dropped at the mention of their ... Her mother, he didn't have anything to say in regards to her but he certainly didn't have anything positive to say. She may have pulled her head out of the clouds but it was a little too late for it to mean anything to him.

"Hey," Lori spoke, gaining Lincoln's attention. "I know that look, I know you're upset, justifiably so but she is trying her best to get on top of it all. Just... Cut her a little slack." Lori held her fingers close together, each finger was separated by maybe a centimeter. "Just a smidge, not a lot though."

Despite trying to resist doing so, Lincoln's lips twitched into a small amused smile that almost resulted in a dull chuckle. She'd take that for what it was worth and savour it.

* * *

Separated from the rest of the loud houses residents, out in the garage, the resident mechanic was hard at work. With her crude bit of paper with her measurements, she carefully marked out the large wooden board with the area where she needed to cut, trim and carve the board to turn it into a door.

The material supplies that she had gotten yesterday were left close to her, just a little out of arms reach but not so far away it would be annoying to her. She knew she had to be extremely delicate with what she was doing, yeah, she was the queen of risks but this wasn't something she wanted to risk. At. All.

Not when she only had the one wooden board to use.

As the six year old looked around her, she had to give credit to Leni for really cleaning up the garage better then she had seen it before. It gave her ample room to work on her own project.

Making the door wouldn't be the hard part, the hard part would be getting his door frame fixed and fixing the door to that. And of course, if she messed up, then it would take her longer, which was why she was pulling out every trick she knew. She's was adding an extra half inch to each side of the door, giving her extra room in case the door would be too small, she wouldn't carve out the space for the lock until she knew whether she did or didn't need to adjust the doors size.

There was more to it too but she couldn't be bothered to go over it in her head, she'd deal with it when she got around to it.

Unfortunately she knew she wouldn't be able to cut the wood herself, despite knowing plumbing and mechanical work, she was not allowed to use any sharp object for anything. Not even scissors to cut normal paper, at least not with the sharp pair of scissors at least. So she knew she would have to wait until either her mother or Leni was able to help her out with it, given that those two were the only two who also knew how to work with wood.

In another hour of misfortune, her mother was too busy trying to wrangle the house under her control in a similar fashion to her trying to wrangle an alligator. Leni was... Well Leni, so she'd either forget or do it wrong and Lana was not willing to take that risk.

Sighing the six year old slumped to the ground, unable to continue with her work until other people were available to help her. Which was a shame as she was unable to work on the door frame for the same reason as the door and the fact that Lincoln was in the house and she really wanted this to be a surprise for him.

door now she was going to retire to the house and see what came about later... Or tomorrow.

* * *

**A/N: I am SO SO sorry for the extremely long wait. 2+ Months? How could I let this happen?**

**I know some things have gone on longer then that but with my track record for uploads this one is the outcast. I know I updated Moving in several times during this break but also know not all of you also read that story, so I understand if there is some frustration.**

**Just to let you know I was struggling with some sections of this for a while and I have been extremely busy in my day to day life. Think; trying to be a substitute for three people everyday busy. Then add more and that's me.**

**One quick thing to anyone with a guest account or a account that can't be responded to (Private messages) please try to create a real account so I may respond to you if you have questions or grievances, I actually like responding to that sort of stuff and would like to clear up any confusions as soon as possible.**

**Also please do NOT spam me with anything referring update times, as I have said before, I don't have a schedule or routine in place and it's disheartening to think my Hobby has become a chore. So pleaee, DON'T.**


	26. I'm so sorry

Hey guys it's **SpartanXHunterX **here, sorry to do this but unfortunately I've come to the decision to drop BOTH my loud house stories, life has gotten hectic and I just don't have the time or motivation to keep doing it, it was fun while it lasted but fortunately it just feels like a chore now.

It's feels really strange to pick this story back up again, especially after moving on to other things and having been gone from this for so long.

This isn't some quick spur of the moment thought either, I have tried and tried to get back into the groove of writing this but just can't muster the energy. I'm sorry that this isn't what you where expecting but unfortunately it is what is happening.

However, good news, feel free to adopt, adapt and use both my stories as you please, just don't take credit as the original story writer.

**SpartanXHunterX out**


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